South African Catholic Bishop’s Conference
Submission to the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the Film and Publications Board Amendment Bill (827-2006)

Introduction
The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference welcomes the opportunity to make a submission on this important piece of legislation.

In recent years, the rapid expansion of access to various forms of electronic communication such as the Internet and cell-phones, and the strides made in fields such as interactive computer games, have resulted in untold benefits to people in all walks of life. The increasing availability of knowledge, information, education and entertainment, and the opportunities for exchanges of views and opinions, are to be welcomed almost without reservation. This "communications revolution" is a good example of how technology and scientific progress can contribute to the common good and to the advancement of humanity.

Unfortunately, there will always be those who seek to use such technology for purposes which undermine, rather than advance, the common good. Thus, the Internet, for example, is replete with sites that promote racial hatred and religious intolerance; that advocate violent solutions to political and other problems; and that exploit and degrade the gift of sexuality for reasons of commercial profit or simple perversion. Likewise, computer games and cell-phones, as has been the case for many decades with films and the printed media, are now being employed as vehicles for the dissemination of hatred, violence and sexual exploitation.

Legitimate Restriction
There is nothing sinister about society taking steps to control such activities. Society has the right, indeed the duty, to protect itself and especially its most vulnerable members, from elements that either ignore the common good or, worse, actively seek to harm it. We cannot believe, for example, that any reasonable South African would argue that it would be desirable to allow people to publish calls to inter-racial violence; or to allow the free dissemination of child pornography.

Of course, there will always be a legitimate debate about where to draw the line and about how to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable limitations on freedom of expression and freedom of the media. In our view, however, the types of material at which the Film and Publications Act, and the present amendment, are aimed undoubtedly require restriction. To those who argue that this amounts to censorship, we would point out firstly, that as we have already suggested, a degree of censorship is sometimes necessary; and secondly, that provision is made for the dissemination of sexually explicit material through so-called adult premises, or subject to reasonable safeguards to prevent children having access to it and being harmed by it. Surely no reasonable person would believe that these measures are excessive. Those who wish to produce and disseminate sexually explicit material, and those who wish to consume it, are free to do so, subject to certain clear and reasonable restrictions and conditions. (We note, in passing, that similar restrictions as to age and premises apply also to cigarettes, alcohol, medications and other harmful or potentially harmful products.)

The Internet
Regarding the proposed new section 24C, which deals with the Internet, in our view it is high time that service providers took steps to protect their customers. We are aware. of course, that the industry has already done a certain amount, but it would appear that not all service providers pay sufficient attention to the potential for this wonderful medium to be exploited and abused by people with evil intentions.

Newspapers
We are very much aware that the proposed repeal of section 22(3) of the Act has evoked widespread protest from the press. Certainly, any attempt by government to exert political control over the media must be rejected (and would, we believe, be struck down as unconstitutional). Similarly, any attempt to "muzzle" the media by routinely subjecting it, especially newspapers, to pre-publication censorship, must be rejected. We are confident that our media are sufficiently resilient, and our Constitution sufficiently clear, to prevent this happening.

With these considerations in mind, however, it is not clear to us why newspapers, as a particular category of the media, should be exempted from the provisions of a law of this kind. We do not understand the Film and Publications Act, or the present amendment, to be an instrument of political control. Indeed, even if government were to attempt to use it as such, it is simply not, on our reading, capable of being employed to that end. It does not seem to us that any newspaper, in the sense that "newspaper" is generally understood, would or could fall foul of the provisions of the Act.

The situation may be different, however, for publications that style themselves "newspapers" but which are, in whole or part, concerned with the dissemination of the type of material at which the Act is aimed. The most obvious example is the growing number of so-called tabloids, some of which at least have been unable to resist the temptation to boost their circulations (and the profits of their owners) by publishing sexually explicit material. Even some newspapers that see themselves as more "up-market" carry "adult" advertising that is itself more or less sexually explicit. Where a newspaper decides to carry such material, a decision which is based on purely commercial grounds and which cannot be defended as advancing the ordinary purposes of a newspaper, it can surely not demand to be treated differently from other publications that deal with the same type of material. Why should a magazine containing sexually explicit material have to comply with the provisions of the Act, but not a newspaper with similar content?

It seems to us, therefore, that the proposed repeal of the exemption presently enjoyed by newspapers is no threat to any newspaper that refrains from the gratuitous publication of material that the Act seeks to restrict or - in the case of incitement to violence, propaganda for war, or the advocacy of racial and other hatred - prohibit.

Conclusion
We commend government for the steps it is taking to protect children and others from exploitation and exposure to harmful material. We do not believe that the Bill is excessively restrictive, or that it interferes with any fundamental freedoms in an unjustifiable way. In our view, the Bill and the principal Act serve the common good and we accordingly urge that the amendment receive this Committee's support.