This Bill Should Never Pass Into Law

THE Namibian this week urged the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and Security to scrap Chapter 6 containing the interception clause from what has already become known as the ‘Spy Bill’, namely the Communications Bill.

The Communications Bill was recently passed by the National Assembly, and when it reached the National Council, was referred to a Standing Committee which in turn organised a public hearing on the controversial piece of legislation.The Namibian, like many others, presented both written and oral testimony before the committee, and urged the scrapping of the said Chapter because it was both wide open to abuse, as well as contravening the Namibian Constitution, most particularly the Bill of Rights.The newspaper thanked the National Council for its foresight in calling for public scrutiny of this bill, but regretted that the hearings had not been more widely advertised in order for more public participation to be possible.A wide variety of groups were invited to testify before the Standing Committee, including the media, telecommunications companies, non-governmental organisations, human rights groups and the Office of the Attorney General, among others.The Namibian was not alone in condemning the bill. The Legal Assistance Centre’s Norman Tjombe also focused attention on the fact that key sections of the bill fell short of constitutional provisions on the protection of the right to privacy of individuals. ‘Part 6 of the Communications Bill … leaves too many areas open for abuse of the right to privacy,’ said Tjombe, who added that the Namibian Constitution recognised the right to privacy in very clear terms. It states, among others, that ‘no person shall be subject to interference with their homes, correspondence or communications save as in accordance with law and as is necessary in a democratic society …’ and likewise safeguards Namibians against arbitrary searches of their person or their homes.Tjombe maintained that what was needed instead was that the people should know what the Government was doing and not vice versa.Both the LAC and The Namibian agreed, in their emphasis on this particular section of the bill, that Namibians had fought for their independence in order to get rid of both a draconian regime as well as an undemocratic order, and that the people of Namibia had the right to be emotional when defending their hard-won rights.The Namibian also maintained that Government needed to clearly spell out whether communications had been tampered with since Independence, and asked whether the Bill was an attempt to legitimise something which was conceivably already happening illegally.The Editor of The Namibian handed to the Standing Committee a copy of an interception order issued by the then Security Police against her mail in 1984, ostensibly on the grounds of ‘state security’, and pointed out to them the perils of forgetting the past at the expense of the future.Any bill that was open to abuse, as was even acknowledged by Sackey Shangala of the Office of the Attorney General, should never be passed into law, she warned.The notion of national security can clearly be abused, and while we, like most other peace-loving Namibians, share concerns about the wellbeing of our nation, we nevertheless feel that inroads into the rights of privacy cannot be expected to do the work of our law enforcement offices and agencies, of which we have a number.There are a number of other concerns about the bill in question, most related to areas which could impinge on fundamental human rights and/or which could clearly be used to spy on political opponents, rather than reveal money-laundering plots or possible terrorist activities.Even the prospect of what are called ‘intelligence centres’ which the President is obligated to set up, according to the bill, is a scary prospect, because it gives the impression that a great deal of interception of communication will be taking place.None of the assurances that have been given to date, among others by the Minister of Information and Communication Technology, can divert us from calling for the total scrapping of Chapter 6 of this Bill, which is more dangerous to our democratic order than it is likely to reveal criminal activity.We would therefore again urge Government to go back to the drawing board on this bill and ensure that whatever legislation they contemplate in future, is in total compliance with our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and more than this, our hard-won democracy.