The ANC Chief Whip's office commended the Public Protector on Friday for refusing to take up an “unfair” investigation into comments made by State Security Minister in relation to the Protection of State Information Bill.
Protector Thuli Madonsela on Monday rejected a request from the media to investigate a statement by State Security Minister, Siyabonga Cwele.
She was asked to investigate whether his comment that those who opposed the bill were proxies funded by foreign spies was protected by parliamentary privilege.
The office of the Chief Whip said in a statement on Friday that by turning down the request, Madonsela “reaffirmed the centrality of the Constitution and the importance of Parliament in our country's democracy”.
He commended her for “refusing to be used to advance narrow sectoral interests”.
“It has been our view that the request for such an investigation was unfair to, if not an abuse of, the Office of the Public Protector, as it has no jurisdiction over the conduct of Members of Parliament in the Houses of Parliament,” he said.
Madonsela advised the media, represented by the SA National Editors Forum (Sanef) to take their complaints to the National Council of the Provinces (NCOP).
Madonsela's office said she was deliberately distancing herself from the civil campaign against the contentious bill, to prevent her office from coming under political suspicion and attack.
Sanef's request came at a time when African National Congress (ANC) Chief Whip Mathole Motshekga had put Madonsela under fire for writing to assembly speaker, Max Sisulu, on the bill.
Madonsela had warned that if passed, the bill was likely to hinder her work, as she relied in part on information from whistle-blowers and the media.
In her letter to Sisulu, Madonsela noted that numerous organisations had approached her and expressed concern on the implications of the draft law.
The bill was approved by the National Assembly on November 22
and is awaiting deliberation by an ad hoc committee of the NCOP.
Media houses, civil society organisations and ANC ally, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), have warned that if the bill was signed into law in its current form, it would be challenged in the Constitutional Court. - Sapa