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We note with concern the scarcity of grassroots voices from the shortlist of presentations on the Protection of State Information Bill, and call on the committee to extend the opportunity for oral presentations from more organisations. While an extraordinarily broad spectrum of South Africans gave written submissions in the face of a deeply flawed provincial hearings process – such as Gugulethu Backyarders, Sikhula Sonke and the Delft Integrated Network – no submission by representatives of community-based organisations has been short-listed.

In addition, the Right2Know campaign is concerned at the seemingly arbitrary exclusion of a number of vital civil society submissions on the remaining problems with the Bill, as there were no clear criteria used for selecting which submissions were to be shortlisted.

For example, a detailed submission by Professor Jane Duncan (Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University) was excluded on the argument that two other submissions would ‘represent the media sector’ – this despite the obvious fact that her academic department does not represent any media organisation, and there was very little overlap between her submission and the two ‘media sector’ submissions referred to. In particular, Duncan’s arguments on the broader crisis of transparency plaguing South Africa’s security cluster should be central to deliberations on the Protection of State Information Bill and its potential impact on our democracy.

Similarly, the detailed submission made by the South African History Archives was discussed and excluded for reasons that were not made clear. As SAHA is one of South Africa’s foremost experts in freedom of information, their exclusion is difficult to justify – indeed, the Right2Know campaign’s own 25-page submission endorses some of SAHA’s key arguments relating to how the “Secrecy” Bill in its current form will undermine the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

We believe these submissions offer unique and valuable perspectives not covered in other submissions. On the other hand, if a ‘sectoral approach’ was followed, other sectors have been overlooked entirely, such as community groups mentioned above. It seems that the short-listing process was unsystematic and has omitted a number of vital voices.

We call on the ad hoc committee members to apply their minds fully on these submissions; the committee must take more time for Parliamentary hearings to ensure all substantive submissions are considered.