Zuma sends Info Bill back to Parliament

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Cape Town – President Jacob Zuma has sent the Protection of State Information Bill back to the National Assembly over concern that two sections in the bill are unconstitutional.

Interacting with members of the Press Gallery Association at Tuynhuys on the 36th anniversary of the death of Steve Biko, Zuma said he had exercised his prerogative as President to send the bill back to Parliament before assenting to it.

He said he had written to Parliament asking that the National Assembly relook at sections 42 and 45, which “did not pass constitutional muster” because the sections lacked clarity.

Section 42 deals with the failure to report information that should be classified, while Section 45 deals with the improper classification of state documents and the penalties for those who knowingly classify information in order to achieve any purpose ulterior to the act, for example, to conceal breaches of the law or prevent embarrassment to a person, organisation or agency.
 
“The Constitution requires that the President must assent to and sign the bill referred to him … by the National Assembly. However, in terms of Section 79.1 of the Constitution, if the President has reservations about the constitutionality of the bill he … may refer it back to the National Assembly for reconsideration,” he said.

Zuma said there were also issues around tagging (which will affect whether the choice to classify something as state information or not lies with provincial governments or with national government) but stressed that in the whole, it was problems with these two sections that raised concern from him.

As President, Zuma has the option to send the bill to the Constitutional Court, but had not opted not to do so, explaining that he saw no logic in sending it to the Constitutional Court because he expected the court to send the bill back because the two sections failed to pass the constitutional test.

Turning to the global economic outlook, he said emerging economies were beginning to show signs of recovery, but at a slow pace, while growth had begun to pick up again in advanced economies.

He again called for the cooperation of labour and business.

“We urged business and labour once again to resolve labour disputes amicably and speedily,” said Zuma.

He said the government had made significant progress since 1994, even when compared to those African countries that had won their independence in the 1950s.

“No country has delivered what we have delivered in 19 years,” he said.

He said now that the matric pass rate was going up, it would never come down because the fundamentals in education had been put in place.

Meanwhile, a South African delegation will travel to the UN in a week’s time to debate the progress and continuation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which expire in 2015. – SAnews.gov.za