DA walks out of censorship Bill hearings

By Leon Engelbrecht, ITWeb senior writer

Johannesburg, 28 May 2007

Two Democratic Alliance (DA) MPs have walked out of a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs to protest the debate of a censorship Bill they say is "clearly unconstitutional".

"Myself and the DA deputy spokesman on home affairs, Marius Swart MP, walked out of a meeting due to our objections to the unconstitutional Film and Publications Bill," says MP Sandy Kalyan.

"The proposed Bill, as well as the proposed ANC amendments, are open to constitutional challenge and we, therefore, find it a futile exercise to continue a clause-by-clause discussion of the Bill," she adds. "Regrettably, the Bill in its current form fails to achieve the purpose for which it was ostensibly drafted."

Kalyan, in a statement, gave a number of reasons why the Bill would be unconstitutional if enacted. Most are technical in content. They include that the draft law would retain publication censorship, and that restoring the exemption for newspapers and broadcasters from having to seek pre-publication approval for material including violence or sexual content does not remedy the situation.

Other amendments duplicate existing provisions in other laws, such as the Equality Act; place the adjudication of freedom of expression issues before an administrative tribunal staffed with bureaucrats, rather than the courts; or encroach on the authority of the Independent Communications Authority of SA.

Acrimonious hearings

The walkout follows acrimonious hearings earlier this month, during which the media decried the Bill for seeking to introduce a censorship regime "not even the apartheid government dared to enforce".

Among the parties making submissions were the Internet Service Providers Association, the Wireless Application Service Providers Association and the National Association of Broadcasters.

Swart, at the time, said the Bill "as far as I am concerned, is fraught with difficulty and is unconstitutional in many respects". He added that the objectives of the Bill, to clamp down on visual images of child abuse and to keep porn out of the hands of children, are laudable, "but we are going about it the wrong way". Swart said self-regulation remained preferable.

Freedom of Expression Institute spokesman Naeem Jeenah says he regrets the DA's walkout. "This is an important battle that needs to be fought at the level of the Parliamentary Committee and it is a pity the DA withdrew. That leaves it to civil society to convince the rest of the committee that the Bill is unconstitutional.

"For us, the lobbying around the Bill continues," Jeenah says. "We will continue to lobby Parliament not to enact the Bill. If they do, we will lobby the president [Thabo Mbeki] not to sign it into law. If he signs, we - with other organisations - will lead a constitutional challenge against it. We hope it won't come to that."