24^th June 2003

Introduction

1. The South African Council of Churches (SACC) is the facilitating body for a fellowship of 24 Christian Churches, together with one observer-member and associated para-church organisations. Founded in 1968, the SACC includes among its members Protestant, Catholic, African Independent, and Pentecostal churches, representing the majority of Christians in South Africa. SACC members are committee to expressing jointly, through proclamation and programmes, the united witness of the church in South Africa, especially in matters of national debate.
2. The South African Council of Churches (SACC) thanks the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security for the opportunity of making submission on the Anti-Terrorism Bill. We have stood alongside and with the majority of people who have longed and struggled for a South Africa freed from the tentacles of the past and its apartheid regimes. From that past, we remain committed to securing the best of the Constitutional and democratic gains that we have together achieved over the past nine years. In the spirit of ensuring justice especially fore the marginilised of the nation, a Parliamentary Office has been established and hereby we make this submission.
3. As an organisation defending the rights of the poor and oppressed within the borders of SA, the SACC, its personnel and buildings was often targeted by apartheid regimes that suspected it of supporting "terrorism" and harbouring subversive elements. To this end it suffered the ignominy of being declared an affected organisation during the 1980’s. I mention this since, along with today’s ruling party, we witnessed the tables turned and acknowledge that the moral high ground has been achieved in affecting social change through a debate on policy rather than through the kind of political stereotyping of the past.
4. We have noted that the ATB 2003 aims to "combat terrorism" or any activity connected therewith as well as ensure that South African courts are enabled to bring to trial perpetrators of "terrorist acts". We understand that the introduction of the ATB is intended to repeal Act No. 74 of 1982 ("The Internal Security Act") with omnibus security legislation. Moreover, we are mindful of the need for South Africa, admitted through our democratic progress to the family of nations, to respond to the "call upon all States" to "…become parties … to the relevant international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism …" Such legislation, together with treatises from the African Union and The Non-Aligned Movement etc., we note, seeks to sustain international cooperation against terrorism.
5. The South African Council of Churches has always and continues to hold in high esteem the peace brokering work of the United Nations. However much we acknowledge that the work on the Bill began in earnest before 9/11, our concern lies with the manner in which America and its allies have overpowered the UN in the wake of threats to their national security since that fateful day. This call for a "harmonising" of international law appears to override the African and South African contexts of dealing with Continental conflicts of a social and political nature. We are concerned that such legislation will adversely affect foreign policy and relations on the African continent where South Africa has fast become renowned as peace broker and mediator in countries of extreme civil unrest. How could SA continue such work if we were forced by international law to possibly treat an outlawed liberation front, for example, as a "terrorist organisation"? The reality across the world is already that social and political groupings that cause problems and embarrassment to ruling parties have been branded as "terrorist organisations" and their leaders charged with "terrorist acts". Ironically, not too long ago, the ruling African National Congress was regarded as a terrorist organisation by the United States.
6. Our greatest concerns stem from various inadequacies in the Bill. Firstly, we remain uncertain as to why South Africa needs to formulate such legislation. We find no compelling reasons to enact Anti-Terrorism legislation other than a "call" from the UN. Given the suggested levels of urgency as well as the acknowledgement that anti-terrorism legislation will impinge on the liberties of such an accused, the SACC will accede, however, to a minimalist incursion or restriction into the human rights of an accused. We therefore stress our moral obligation to be precise and so to define "terrorist acts" narrowly without allowing a broadened security focus. We therefore concentrate our focus on terrorism as a threat to human security rather than to economic or institutional security.
7. To this end, the SACC supports a definition that has emerged from the "third draft" which defines a "terrorist act" as an act, in or outside the Republic,

1. Measures relating to Offences:

Offences and Penalties are difficult to proscribe given the arbitrary nature of our definition in this point of time. With regard to punishment fitting the crime, we reiterate that terrorism is essentially a contravention of human security and that more needs to be done to understand the emergence of terrorism. It is a mute point whether stricter penalties are a deterrent to crime.

2. Offences related to internationally protected persons appear to provide international persons with more protection than the ordinary citizen. While acknowledging that international persons enjoy special status, it appears as though the weight of judgement gives more value to international persons than to the ordinary citizen.
3. Power to stop and search vehicle and person, we understand, is a measure already in place for police under the Criminal Procedure Act so we question the need fir separate legislation in this regard.
4. INVESTIGATIVE HEARINGS

It appears as though the right to remain silent is waived under a process that seeks to gather information on someone who is not accused. This provision could be a dangerous. While we applaud the removal of detention without trial, as with much of this Bill, our concern remains with those who need to implement its intent. A concern here is a lack of clarity on what structures would need to be put in place in order to give effect to such legislation?

5. MEASURES TO COMBAT TERRORISM

Given the repressed history of the SACC during the ‘80’s, we note the concerns of the Legal Resources Centre and of the SA Catholic Bishops Conference and agree that declaring an organisation a terrorist organisation becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. We prefer to deal with such organisations with the utmost transparency as well as the due process of law such as is provided for under the Bill of Rights of Arrested, detained and accused persons.

13. Applicability of rules relating to confidentiality especially at Chapter 4 section 17 which limits a suspect’s right to silence declares that "no duty of secrecy or confidentiality or any other restriction on the disclosure of information whether imposed by legislation or arising from the common law agreement affects compliance by an accountable institution or any other person." While the limits on confidentiality do not apply between attorney and client, the religious profession to whom people in conflict with law often turn for spiritual guidance, is likely to have limits placed on confidentiality. From a religious perspective, such legislation will place the integrity of religious workers at stake while political and legal determinants would seriously infringe upon the religious rights of someone suspected of, but not proven to be, a terrorist.

6. CONCLUSION