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At the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee meeting, the Minister of Home Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma agreed with the Democratic Alliance (DA) that there was no discernible reason why film and publications law and the Film and Publications Board should form part of her portfolio, and indicated that she is open to negotiate with other Ministries to reallocate the responsibility.

The Minister agreed that although she inherited this entity when becoming Home Affairs Minister, it actually does not belong in her Department.

Accordingly, Cabinet should seriously look at placing this entity under the guardianship of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. In order to give effect to this important change, I will:
ask questions of the Minister and write to her in this regard;
make a statement in the National Assembly; and
request that this matter be formally tabled at the Portfolio Committee of Home Affairs.
The allocation of film and publications law to Home Affairs is a relic of Nationalist Party rule, when the Home Affairs Minister ran the censorship regime under which books and films were banned. The first Home Affairs Minister after transition was the leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who is a firm believer in free speech.

Buthelezi tabled, and Parliament further embellished, the original Film and Publications Act of 1996. This progressive Act outlawed censorship for all but the truly unacceptable forms of expression – bestiality, child pornography and the like – and created a Board whose primary function was consumer advice. Since the Buthelezi era, ANC Ministers have, however, progressively amended the Act to reintroduce censorship, culminating in the creation of an unconstitutional system of pre-publication censorship almost identical to that of the apartheid era.

Because the Film and Publications Board deals with one of our fundamental rights; that of free speech, it is best placed within the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, and not with Home Affairs. The Communications Ministry is not suitable as its remit is limited to electronic communications.