THE Protection of Information Bill was detrimental to the core functioning of higher education, a body representing South African universities said yesterday.

“Access to information is the cornerstone not only to the functioning democracy but it is central to the enterprise of the university,” said Higher Education South Africa (Hesa), which represents 23 public universities led by the vice- chancellors.

“Specifically, because of the negative way it might impact on Sections 32 – access to information – and 16 – freedom of speech – of the Constitution, the proposed Bill is potentially detrimental to the core functioning of higher education.”

The body said without access to information the process of knowledge generation would be hampered, and without freedom of speech, “academic freedoms would be placed in jeopardy”.

Chairman of Hesa Ihron Rensburg said the Bill in its present form did not pass constitutional muster and was not consistent with the principle of academic freedom. “These are valid concerns, because they touch on the heart of the academic endeavour, as well as civil liberty,” he said.

“However, as much as it is the duty of higher education to speak truth to power, it is also necessary for our universities to find solutions to impasses.”

Rensburg said Hesa supported a recent statement by the South African Law Deans’ Association in which it “affirmed its willingness” to work with government by providing legal expertise and comparative analysis of the proposed Bill in order to shape it into a form that “transparently serves the needs of everyone”.

“This is a group of experts with some of the best legal minds in the country, who wish to work collectively towards a nuanced piece of legislation that is acceptable to both government and society.”

The proposed media tribunal would affect not only journalists, but even creative writers, Nadine Gordimer said in an interview on the UK newspaper Guardian’s website yesterday.

Gordimer, SA’s Nobel Prize-winning writer, said creative writers would suffer an insidious attack on their freedoms, because they often relied on material unearthed by journalists . “We, too, are threatened by denial of freedom of the word, which is our form of expression of the lives of the people of South Africa . Our aim is to explore life,” she said.

She added it was “more than an irony” that she was fighting for freedom again. “People died in the freedom struggle, and to think that having gained freedom at such a cost, it is now threatened again.”

Gordimer is one of the prominent writers with South African roots to endorse a statement by the “Right to Know” campaign against the tribunal.

Published on Daily Dispatch:2010-09-02

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