DearSA chairman Rob Hutchinson is encouraging South Africans to make their voices heard in opposition to certain worrying elements contained within amendments to anti-terrorism legislation he believes “is a threat to constitutional democracy”. DearSA is a non-profit organisation which created a platform through which citizens could participate directly in influencing policy, legislative amendments and proposals. Hutchinson says if the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Amendment Bill passes as is, it could see organisations like DearSA being labelled as a terrorist organisation under incredibly vague definitions of seeking to undermine the state. He told BizNews correspondent Michael Appel there is a danger of creeping authoritarianism as existing legislation is almost perfectly adequate but simply lacks implementation by the government.
Excerpts from interview with DearSA chairman Rob Hutchinson
Rob Hutchinson on whether certain constitutional freedoms are under threat
Freedom of expression and freedom of association is without a doubt under threat. There is a definite move in a lot of policy to bolster government’s stronghold over the public and a move to a stronger and larger and more authoritarian approach by government through all policy. I don’t think we are unique in South Africa in seeing this progression. But it seems to be a global movement. And as I said, there are a lot of bills that are being put forward to test the Constitution to its absolute limits.
On the dangers posed by the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorist and Related Activities Amendment Bill
If you read the bill and go through the finer details of it, there’s no doubt it’s a threat to constitutional democracy in that the public is under threat of being labelled terrorists under the incredibly loose definitions within the bill and also the loose definitions around what is deemed as a terrorist act or activity. We’ve seen ourselves subject to two such such allegations by government. DearSA was called a a terrorist organisation undermining democratic processes. And all we did was send about 300,000 comments through from the public to government on amendments to the National Health Act. So if this bill and the amendments were in place and under the act, then we could have been held liable and called terrorists and who knows what else. I think it’s a quite a disturbing bill, which seems to have gone under the radar somehow.
On government’s failure to implement existing legislation
That is a major problem in South Africa. We come up with these wonderful policies and wonderful ideas and on paper they might look good and might make the government look like they’re actually doing something. But there’s a definite lack of ability to enforce laws or even carry out policies and proposals from our government. I think that just shows the weakness of of our government, that they almost create a distraction and create a path or an avenue to shift the blame to something else. It doesn’t work while the existing legislation is more than adequate. Yes, we do have some outdated laws and bits of legislation, but they are slowly being brought into line by the relevant bodies. I seem to think that there’s more international pressure on South Africa to bring our laws in line with international law.
On NPOs being a continual thorn in the side of government
If you look at history and look at what happened during the fall of the Soviet Union, the first thing they did was outlaw non-profit organisations and the funding thereof. That was because they realised that in a non-political sense, non-profit organisations and civil society groups can put immense pressure on government, on policy and on the idea of the public getting involved and taking control into their own hands. That’s essentially the job of non-profits. They are supposed to perform a watchdog duty over other government, and that promotes transparency within government as a separate body.
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