Deputy Speaker and hon members, the purpose of this Bill is to give effect to the order of invalidity made by the Western Cape Division of the High Court and confirmed by the Constitutional Court in the matter My Vote Counts v Minister of Justice in 2018.
The order of court declared the Promotion of Access to Information Act invalid to the extent of its inconsistency with the Constitution by failing to provide for the recording, preservation and reasonable disclosure of information on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
The Constitutional Court further ordered Parliament to amend the principle act within 18 months which period ends on 20 December this year. The Bill addresses the court judgement by inserting a new clause, 52(a).
In addition, certain definitions in the principle Act are being amended in order to include political parties and independent candidates in those entities who have a duty under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to make available information to the public.
However, unlike the case of other institutions, political parties and independent candidates will not only have a duty to keep proper record of private funders but also to make it available to the public free of charge at regular intervals. Only time will tell what impact this
legislation will have on the ability of political parties to source private funding, specifically opposition parties in a young democracy like ours.
However, an even bigger concern is the fact that the statutory body tasked with the monitoring and enforcement of obligations in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act is the Information Regulator which still as we speak more than five years after it was created by law, and more than three years after the appointment of the first commissioners, it is still only a paper tiger.
The bureaucratic and technical delay of the operationalisation of the Information Regulator bodes ill for the compliance with the legislation now under discussion.
According to the Human Rights Commission task to deal with the monitoring of Promotion of Access to Information Act compliance up to now has reported year in and year out that there is a general and systematic failure to comply with the existing reporting obligations.
Sadly, there is therefore a big likelihood that enforcement of the duty to make public may fall by the wayside. A lot more attention will have to be given to the functionality of the office of the Information Regulator if this piece of legislation is to ever mean anything at all.
Nevertheless, the Bill both gives effective judgement and is also constitutional and the DA supports the Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]