{"id":4312,"date":"2015-10-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/amabhungane\/stories\/civil-society-urges-national-assembly-to-appoint-suitable-watchdog-for-the-spies\/"},"modified":"2015-10-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T00:00:00","slug":"civil-society-urges-national-assembly-to-appoint-suitable-watchdog-for-the-spies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/civil-society-urges-national-assembly-to-appoint-suitable-watchdog-for-the-spies\/","title":{"rendered":"Civil society urges National Assembly to appoint suitable watchdog for the spies"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>UPDATE:\u00a0Since the release of this statement, amaBhungane has received confirmation that\u00a0Parliament set 18 November\u00a0as the date for\u00a0an NA vote for a\u00a0new IGI.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>AmaBhungane has\u00a0joined the Right2Know Campaign (R2K) in sending a letter to the speaker of the National Assembly, calling for a new Inspector General for Intelligence (IGI)\u00a0&#8211; the public protector of the spies &#8211; to be\u00a0appointed urgently.\u00a0The position has been vacant for seven months.<\/p>\n<p>The letter, sent by the Legal Resources Centre on behalf of R2K, warns\u00a0that:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe failure of the National Assembly (NA) seven months after the end of the term of the previous head, and four months after the Intelligence Committee finalised its nomination process to vote on this matter has rendered the NA in breach of its constitutional obligations. Accordingly, R2K demands the NA inform us of what steps it intends to take to fulfil its constitutional obligation in terms of section 210 (b) of the Constitution to approve the appointment of the IGI diligently and without delay.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cdn.mg.co.za\/content\/documents\/2015\/10\/28\/20151023lettertospeakerofthenationalassembly.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Read the letter of demand<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In accordance with the Intelligence Services Oversight Act, only once the NA passes a vote can the president move to appoint the new IGI.<\/p>\n<p>Attempts earlier this year to vote in the previous chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence\u00a0Cecil Burgess, were unsuccessful\u00a0after the ANC was unable to get a two-thirds majority.\u00a0R2K and others had raised doubts about\u00a0the process that led to Burgess&#8217;s nomination.<\/p>\n<p>Burgess led the process of drafting the controversial\u00a0Secrecy Bill\u00a0to regulate and police classified information.<\/p>\n<p>The IGI is a powerful constitutionally mandated watchdog over the intelligence agencies, ensuring that the rule of law is upheld and the rights of South Africans are protected. The IGI can investigate complaints lodged by any member of the public, the media and the intelligence services on alleged maladministration and abuse of powers by the spies.<\/p>\n<p>The importance of an independent and effective watchdog amidst ongoing political abuses of intelligence agencies and the rise in undue surveillance of activists and journalists cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n<p>Recently,\u00a0State Security Agency (SSA)\u00a0officials\u00a0reportedly\u00a0accused some parliamentary journalists and civil society organisations,\u00a0including R2K, of being\u00a0&#8220;foreign agents&#8221;.\u00a0One recourse would be for affected parties to submit complaints to the\u00a0IGI,\u00a0but\u00a0the\u00a0post stands empty.<\/p>\n<p>It is not just new complainants who stand to be affected by the leadership vacuum. An unresolved backlog in complaints plague this headless oversight body.<\/p>\n<p>AmaBhungane has lodged two complaints to the office of the Inspector General within the last two years, both of which are unresolved.<\/p>\n<p>In both instances grave infringements on source protection, which is recognised in national and international law as vital for press freedom, hang in the balance.<\/p>\n<p>AmaBhungane\u2019s first complaint was lodged following confirmation that the SSA intended to investigate leaks of the Public Protector\u2019s provisional report on the Nkandla security upgrades.<\/p>\n<p>This was after amaBhungane and\u00a0\u00a0the <em>Mail &amp; Guardian<\/em> have\u00a0published information contained in the public protector\u2019s provisional report. The second complaint arose from the\u00a0revelation that communications\u00a0of amaBhungane managing partner Sam Sole had been intercepted.\u00a0In April, the president&#8217;s attorney attached transcripts of these conversations to an affidavit before the North Gauteng High Court, the president\u2019s attorney cited these intercepted telephonic communications and attached transcripts of them in an annexure to an affidavit in the so-called \u201cspy tapes\u201d matter.<\/p>\n<p>An investigative community newspaper in Mpumalanga, Ziwaphi, similarly submitted a complaint to the IGI in February this year.<\/p>\n<p>The complaint followed statements by Mpumalanga Premier David Mabuza, that he was receiving intelligence briefings on the movements and activities of journalists in Mpumalanga.<\/p>\n<p>Confidentiality of journalists&#8217; sources is an indispensable part of the right to freedom of the press, and such communications would tend to be unlawful and unconstitutional.\u00a0Confidential communication with sources as an integral part of an investigative journalist&#8217;s daily work.<\/p>\n<p>The continued delay in appointing a permanent IGI, with the authority to\u00a0finalise investigations and reports on these, is an infringement on the media and public\u2019s rights to dignity and privacy but also of the broader right to freedom of the press.<\/p>\n<p>Unaccountable surveillance chills press freedom, discourages whistle-blowers and activists, and deprives citizens of\u00a0constitutional rights and protections.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament plays a crucial role in holding the executive accountable and providing oversight to the spies.<\/p>\n<p>A review of the intelligence oversight legislation is sorely required to enable the office of the IGI to act independently and\u00a0Parliament\u2019s intelligence portfolio committee to operate with greater transparency, making the intelligence agencies more publicly accountable and mitigating the threat the spies may pose to South Africa\u2019s constitutional democracy.<\/p>\n<p><em>AmaBhungane engages in advocacy under its mandate to helpsecure the information rights investigative journalists need to do their work. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>* Got a tip-off for us about this story? Click <a href=\"http:\/\/amabhungane.co.za\/page\/contact-amabhungane\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amabhungane.co.za\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/94x94.jpg\" width=\"94\" height=\"94\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a><strong>The <em>M&amp;G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amabhungane.co.za\">www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advocacy: We join Right2Know\u2019s letter to the National Assembly speaker, calling for urgency on appointing an Inspector General for Intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22750,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}