Wri/idrc report
Yüklə 1,73 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- Table: Statistics of the Department of Environment
- Judicial redress
- Conclusion
- Table: Summary of Case Law
RedressOur analysis in this section was predicated around the core research question of: What are opportunities for recourse for citizens? Opportunities for redressPromotion of Access to Information Act PAIA has well-established procedures for redress, though – as was addressed in our evaluation of the law – there are some significant shortcomings (such as the lack of an independent information commission). The submission of an internal appeal is fairly similar to the request procedure, though a citizen making an internal appeal to a public body must complete what is known as a Form B. You are also required to submit your internal appeal within 60 days of the refusal (or act against which you are appealing). The forms require that all sections be completed, which consists of six main sections: A) details of the Information Officer; B) particulars of the requester; C) particulars of person on whose behalf request is made (if applicable); D) the decision against which the appeal is lodge; E) the grounds for the appeal; F) notice of decision regarding request for access. The internal appeal must be delivered to the ‘relevant authority’ as described in terms of the Act, who is essentially the political head of the entity that made the original decision. A deemed refusal constitutes a refusal and can be appealed against, and as such the actions of the information officer are not required. The relevant authority then has only 30 days in which to convey their decision on the appeal to the requester. There is no additional cost to make an internal appeal, though if the decision to refuse is reversed you will then be obliged to pay the relevant access fees. As an internal review process, the ability to receive an independent and impartial decision on review is greatly reduced. If you have exhausted your internal remedies, you may approach the courts in terms of section 78 of the Act. You have 180 days in which to lodge this appeal in Court (which was an amendment made to the Act by a decision of the Constitutional Court). It requires an application proceeding. The procedures are dictated by regulations, namely the Rules of Procedure for Application to Court in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (see http://www.pmg.org.za/node/14519). Under these Rules of Procedure, the court of first instance became the Magistrates Court (if the presiding Magistrate is duly trained). Previously, the court of first instance had been the High Court, which greatly restricted access to recourse for the average citizen. However, while technically the court a quo is now the Magistrates Court, the fact is that most such courts do not have the structures required to hear such matters. Though there are not prescribed costs in terms of the law, that costs of attempting to seek redress in a court of law in South Africa are prohibitive to the average applicant. There is no separate external appeal mechanism currently available in South Africa outside of the courts, though an Independent Ombudsman with some oversight powers is likely to come from the Protection of Personal Information Bill. Complaints about PAIA related issues may be lodged with the South African Human Rights Commission and the Public Protector, but not on the basis of a refusal alone. You would have to show that such refusal amounted to a violation of fundamental rights or constituted a ground, such as maladministration, as each entity requires. Table: Statistics of the Department of Environment
Water There are no procedures of redress provided in terms of the sectoral law itself. There does appear to be an unintentional anomaly, however, created by a full reading of the provisions. Section 82(1)(e) makes it an offence to fail or refuse to give information, or give false or misleading information, when required to give information in terms of this Act”. Though a reading of other provisions seems to indicate that the offence for the public failing to provide information when tasked to do so by the state, it did not exclude state officials from liability under sector 82 – nor did it exclude the information provisions of section 76. The capacity for the public to use those offences against officials failing to provide information under section 76 would need to be the subject of a specific legal opinion. There are forms of redress available outside that Act. For instance, it would be suggested that in information cases complaints to the Public Protector or the South African Human Rights Commission could be used. Fortunately, neither of these avenues requires a fee to be paid. In order to make a complaint to the PP, you must first try and deal directly with the entity you are complaining against. The complaint you submit must contain:
Your complaint must relate to improper prejudice experienced as a result of:
You can write your request, or phone your request in, to your relevant provincial Public Protector’s office. There are facilities to allow for the anonymous submission of a complaint. You must submit your complaint to the Public Protector within two years of the incident giving rise to the complaint. The complaint should be responded to in a reasonable time. In order to make a complaint to the South African Human Right Commission, any person can submit a complaint. As with the Protector, you are encouraged to first try and deal directly with the entity you are complaining against. If however you still need to lay a complaint, you are required to:
The complaint must be lodged in the relevant provincial office. There are express provisions which provide for the confidentiality of a complaint. It is preferred that submissions be written, but a provision is made for oral submissions in certain circumstance. You must submit your complaint to the South African Human Rights Commission within three years of the incident giving rise to the complaint (though late filing may be condoned). Within three days of receipt, your complaint should be lodged by the relevant data capturer into the system and a file should then be opened. Within seven days of lodging, your complaint should be acknowledged. The Provincial Manager must then relay the results of the finding to the complainant within seven days of that decision being made. Complaints must be concluded within “the earliest possible opportunity”. In reviewing the institutional framework for the making of complaints to the Department, there are mechanisms for facilitating protected disclosures specifically provided in relation to corruption matters. Recourse to the Presidential Hotline can be made for a general complaint when all your attempts to get assistance from the department have otherwise failed. As such, recourse depends heavily on the nature of the issue concerned: even if it is an access to information issue. The ‘anomaly’ mentioned above, however, which does advance potential recourse avenues, is supported by the results of the institutional reviews shown above whereby the Department of Water was shown to have the highest compliance rating out of all the departments in terms of complaint and response capabilities.
The NEMA: Coastal Management Act also fails to provide particular recourse for a requester. There are forms of redress available outside that Act. Foreseeably again, a requester with an information case complaint could direct them (as seen above) to the Public Protector or the South African Human Rights Commission could be used. While the MEC is obliged to proactively publish related information annually, formal accountability procedures are not included – though it does provide a complainant with additional grounds of complaint if no information can be sourced. Interestingly, within their institutional review, the Department of Environment had the lowest scores in terms of complaint and response capabilities, in spite of forming relatively strongly in its other categories.
The Housing Act also fails to provide particular recourse for a requester attempting to utilise sectoral laws. There are forms of redress available outside that Act. Foreseeably again, a requester with an information cases complaint could direct them (as seen above) to the Public Protector or the South African Human Rights Commission could be used. However, if provincial and municipal entities of the Department of Land contravene a requester’s right of access in terms of section 6(1), section 6(5) implies that they will be held directly accountable by the Director-General. This means that a complaint regarding access to information arising from section 6 from the municipality or provincial entity could be directed straight to the office of the Director-General.
While the Department of Minerals has the best drafted sectoral provision, it also has an express provision for recourse arising directly from the Act. Section 96(1) states:
Essentially then the Act provides the requester with recourse closely associated to mechanisms available under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act of 2000. There are specific exclusions within PAIA of PAJA recourse and issues; however, the sectoral laws would obviously not suffer from this ‘conflict’. As noted previously, REMDEC is used as a reference point for access to information issues and would be consulted on sectoral issues, as well. Further, the recourse of the Public Protector and the South African Human Rights Commission would also be possible for relevant issues.
“The single most cited complaint about the implementation of PAIA is the lack of a cheap, accessible, quick, effective and authoritative mechanism for resolving dispute under the Act. What is sought is a forum which can be accessed after refusal of a request by a public or private body or rejection of internal appeal against refusal of a request by a public body, but before resort to court action.”53 In the judgement of Claase v Information Officer of South African Airways (2006) the court held that in fact: “One of the objects of the legislation is to avoid litigation rather than propagate it”. Judicial recourse is not ideal, but up till now in South Africa it has remained the sole mechanism for seeking independent recourse in access to information issues. Fortunately, the majority of information case decisions have ordered the release of the documents concerned. The court only seems to indicate conservatism in release when dealing with private requests for information (see the table at the end of this subsection). One of the more important effects of the case law on access to information procedure was in the case of Brümmer v Minister for Social Development and Others. In a comprehensive judgment, the Constitutional Court ordered an extension of the day requirements in which a disgruntled requester can approach the court. The time period was extended from 30 days to 180 days, as a reflection of the real difficulties litigants have in trying to get through the court doors. In a sense, this judgment encapsulates much of what is wrong in having to try and approach courts for redress, with detailed insights from the amici as to the extensive costs, delays and bureaucratic pressures which litigants are confronted by. Further, very few cases have been brought forward due to the dominance of the deemed refusal – how can a litigant properly assess their prospects of success, if proper justifications for refusal are never provided? Cases dealing with private requests have been based on trying to establish the limits of the requirement under PAIA that a private request must show the records are required for the exercise of another right. Clutcho v Davis established the standard of “substantial advantage or element of need”, which has been furthered by other decisions addressing the distinction between “useful and relevant” for the exercise or protection of rights and “essential or necessary”. The latter is required. Thus, ‘of assistance’ is a necessary though not sufficient requirement for satisfaction of the PAIA section 50 standard. As noted, private requests tend toward conservatism in the judicial response. However, in an interesting minority decision (also in the Unitas v Van Wyk case), the Judge noted: “Litigation involves massive costs, time, personnel, effort and risks. Where access to a document can assist in avoiding the initiation of litigation, or opposition to it, the objects of the statute suggest that access should be granted.” Generally, though, PAIA cases that do make it before court try and deal directly with the extent of grounds for refusal utilised in terms of the Act. Perhaps one of the most profound cases dealing with the use of refusal grounds more generally has in fact not yet been finally decided, and was recently remitted to the High Court from the Constitutional Court for a final review. While the High Court and Supreme Court decisions in the case provide some interesting guidance as to the high level of justification needed to use grounds of refusals (and importantly lament the lack of application of the mind by many officials who abuse refusal grounds), the Constitutional Court in Brümmer v Minister for Social Development and Others (CCT 25/09) [2009] ZACC 21 held that a court’s role of review was not as limited as appears to have been asserted by the High Court, and allows for de novo review of the decision. The court noted that ultimately the question as to whether the information put forward is sufficient to place the record of the exemption claimed must be determined by the nature of the exemption. Section 80 should be used sparingly (it allows for a ‘judicial peek’ at the records), but such an exercise of discretion should be utilised when there is a potential for injustice as a result of the unique constraints in an ATI dispute. The test to be utilised is whether it is in the interests of justice to do so. Largely because the state was claiming its “hands were tied” in regard to justifying the request, the CC believed the High Court should have invoked section 80 in order to deal with the claim of “non-severability” of the protected information that the M & G could not effectively challenge due to their being presented from viewing the information. As such, the Constitutional Court appears to have in some senses increased the amount of interference allowed by the judiciary into access to information cases. Though there are virtually no access to information cases concerning sectoral laws (Biowatch was addressed in some detail earlier), many of the environmental cases can in fact be sourced from conflicts arising as a result of access to information and just administrative action. In fact, one of the earliest access to information cases post-independence was an environmental law case. In Van Huysteen NO v Minister of Environmental affairs and Tourism54 the applicants opposed an application for rezoning which would allow for a steel mill to be built near the West Coast National Park. The Environmental Conservation Act 73 of 1989 obliges any Minister or official who makes zoning decisions to make that decision in accordance with the Act’s prescribed environmental policy. The applicants applied for an order compelling the first respondent to make available to them copies of all documents in the decision-makers possession that related to the proposed mill. The court held that they were entitled to the order in terms of the right of access to information held by the state (in terms of section 23 of the Interim Constitution) given that the applicants reasonably required the documents to exercise their rights to object to the rezoning. In another example, in Earthlife Africa v Director: Department of General Environmental Affairs and Tourism55 the court allowed the litigants to make further reasonable opportunity to make submissions on a final Environmental Impact assessment that had been issued. Cases involving public participation in the EIA process are in fact relatively common. Perhaps most important to the strong association of access to information and environmental rights in South Africa, is the extension of our right of access to information for private requests – private entities cause some of the most severe environmental damage, with little practice of having to involve the public in decisions which may detrimentally effect their right to environment.
“39. There is hereby established a juristic person to be known as the Information Regulator, which—
Though this will clearly take some time to establish, it will provide a direct solution to the significant problems of redress and recourse highlighted by our research. Further, it has implications for the efficacy of use of sectoral laws – the wording of the section directly implicates relief for requests made under PAIA, and not other forms of access to information requests. When this is read alongside the results detailed above (which show low levels of implemented recourse for sectoral laws) their value as an alternative avenue for access to information is significantly reduced. Table: Summary of Case Law
Yüklə 1,73 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||