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DATE=1/25/2000 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=S-A-F / OPEN DEMOCRACY (L-ONLY) NUMBER=2-258422 BYLINE=DELIA ROBERTSON DATELINE=JOHANNESBURG CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: South Africa's African National Congress (A-N-C)-dominated parliament has adopted a law that grants citizens the right to information held by government departments. However, as V-O- A's Delia Robertson reports from our Johannesburg bureau, unlike countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, in South Africa the law will also accord similar rights to government departments. TEXT: While some opposition parties voted for the new law, called the Promotion of Access to Information Act, all objected to the clauses that will, in certain circumstances, give South African government departments the right to information held by private individuals and organizations. The bill was enacted in terms of the Bill of Rights in South Africa's constitution, which requires that the law be in place by February 4th as a measure to protect citizens against the excesses of government. The opposition parties say that by according rights of access to information to the government, the ruling African National Congress is trying to appropriate fundamental human rights for itself. Sheila Camerer of the New National Party says that specific laws already ensure that the government and other constitutional bodies such as the Human Rights Commission have access to information to fulfill their roles in protecting civil society. /// CAMERER ACT /// Government should not try and employ a constitutional provision designed to protect people in civil society to gain more rights and grab more power than is strictly necessary against members of civil society. If the state requires such specific powers in legislation to invade the privacy of persons, than this must be tested against the limitations clause in the constitution to establish if the limitation in question is a reasonable and justifiable one in an open and democratic society. /// END ACT /// The A-N-C argues that by according the government right of access to information, it is protecting the poor and uneducated who are unable to exercise their constitutional rights - particularly against large and wealthy companies that might seek to exploit them and even to cheat them. A-N-C member of parliament Jeremy Cronin, who is also a senior official in the South African Communist Party, says the government needs access to private information only when it is necessary to protect the interests of those still suffering the effects of racial oppression. /// CRONIN ACT /// With this legislation we are seeking to remedy a situation in which millions of people are information deprived, because they live in marginalized rural areas. Because the racialized education dispensation [education system] under which they were schooled has left them semi- literate. Because we live all of us in the south and not in the north, because as the case of the COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) general secretary (sic), the white farm owner forbade your birth to be registered when you were born, and so to this day you don't know your own exact age. /// END ACT /// The A-N-C's Johnny de Lange rejects the view of opposition parties that the clause is unconstitutional. He also said it does not give the government any further powers but rather a right somewhat more diluted than that granted to private citizens. /// DE LANGE ACT /// The only way this can be enforced is if the government body then goes to court and says, please, we've complied with these four requirements, give me this document. Even then, if the court says you must give it, you can take it on appeal to the appellate division, you can then still take it on appeal to the constitutional division. This is the fundamental point that we have a difference on. We are saying that it is a right which is only enforceable through the courts. And the argument on the other side is that this is a power which somehow diminishes the rights of people. /// END ACT /// But opposition parties and observers alike have welcomed the balance of the law, which further extends the fundamental rights South Africans won in 1994 when they voted to end the racially oppressive system of apartheid. It will also enable many to demand to see the information gathered about them by the security police and other organs of the former government. The bill now goes to the National Council of Provinces where it is also expected to pass without any difficulty. Once that step is complete, President Thabo Mbeki has until February 4th to sign it into law. (Signed) NEB/DR/GE/KL 25-Jan-2000 13:02 PM EDT (25-Jan-2000 1802 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .