Reconciling Democracy and the Protection of State Secrets in South Africa

摘要

South Africa has had a tortuous legal past. Its racial discrimination and segregation system, initiated by colonial rulers, became legal under of the National Party's system of apartheid from 1948 to 1994. Under the appearance of the rule of law, non-whites were marginalized in all aspects of life, forcibly confined to geographic areas, and prevented from participating in decisions affecting their country's destiny. Among the legal instruments used by the National Party to maintain its hold on power was a British-derived Official Secrets Act, which was replaced by the equally vague Protection of Information Act 84 of 1982 that remained largely intact for years until it rapidly became outdated in a post-apartheid context. As the Constitutional Court of South Africa noted in obiter in 2008, "the outdated Protection of Information Act 84 of 1982 needs to be replaced by a statute that takes account of present day constitutional and social realities."