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The Right2Know campaign condemns the legal action taken by Presidential spokesperson Mac Maharaj against Sam Sole and Stefaans Brummer of amaBhungane, in terms of draconian provisions of the National Prosecuting Act that threaten whistleblowers with up to 15 years in prison.

While it is entirely justified that witnesses be protected in criminal investigations, the Act goes to extraordinary lengths to shut off the work of the National Prosecuting Authority from public scrutiny. Essentially any document in their possession is secret, and anyone who discloses that information faces up to 15 years in prison: it need not be formally classified as a secret, it need not relate to national security or the personal safety of a witness to the state -- and most importantly, there is no whistleblower protection or public interest defense written into the law.

Effectively, this is even worse than the Secrecy Bill, which at least requires officials to formally classify a document before it becomes a state secret, and provides some degree of whistleblower protection, as paper-thin as it may be. We view these provisions as a symbol of an existing climate of secrecy in South Africa.

It is in any case not clear how amaBhungane has contravened the Act, since they did not disclose the information in question.

However, the actions taken against amaBhungane in the past few days also show us how readily politicians will use the full might of draconian laws to protect themselves from scrutiny. This is exactly why South Africa needs to guard against the provisions that the Secrecy Bill seeks to dole out: the powerful already harbour too many secrets!