Films & Publications Amendment Bill [B27-B-2007]: Deputy Minister & Department of Home Affairs briefing
NCOP Health and Social Services
12 September 2007
Meeting Summary
A summary of this committee meeting is not yet available.
Meeting report
SOCIAL
SERVICES SELECT COMMITTEE
12 September 2007
FILMS AND PUBLICATIONS AMENDMENT BILL [B27-B-2007]: DEPUTY MINISTER &
DEPARTMENT OF HOME AFFAIRS BRIEFING
Chairperson: Ms J Masilo (ANC, North West)
Documents handed out:
Films and
Publications Amendment Bill Presentation to NCOP
Films and Publications
Amendment Bill [B27B-2006]
Audio
recording of meeting
SUMMARY
The Department of Home Affairs and the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs
briefed the Committee on the Films and Publications Amendment Bill. The Bill
aimed to clarify corporate governance issues and tighten up measures to protect
children against pornography and any form of sexual exploitation. The
Department was aware that technology was moving at an alarming rate but was
trying to find ways to regulate the changes and the entire process. The Department
described each clause in the Bill, and said what it aimed to do.
Members were concerned that there were so many changes and asked why a
completely new Act had not been written. Concerns were expressed over whether
appointments by the Minister would not impact upon the independence of the
Board and Council, and it was explained that the Minister would not be involved
in making policy decisions, and the Council would not be involved in
classifications. The procedures for appointment were similar to those in other
legislation. The appointment of additional board members, future advancements
in technology, the penalties and monitoring, the composition of the Board, and
the reasons why this legislation was administered by Home Affairs were discussed.
Further questions addressed institutions not affiliated to the Standards
Authority, the XX and X18 ratings, the problems of material available over the
internet, in aircraft and in hotels were discussed, and international
comparisons with other legislation were outlined.
MINUTES
Films and Publications Amendment Bill: Briefing by Department of Home Affairs
(DHA)
Hon Malusi Gigaba,
Deputy Minister, Home Affairs, introduced his delegation. Mr
Deon Erasmus, Acting Chief Director, Legal Services, DHA, would deal with the
presentation, but he wished to make some preliminary remarks. The basic purpose
of the legislation was to deal with the corporate governance matters. Whilst
the bill aimed to clarify the corporate governance issues it would also tighten
up measures to protect children against pornography and any form of sexual
exploitation. Another issue of concern was the fact that media such as the
Daily Voice were constantly printing offensive photographs and recordings. The
Department was aware that technology was moving at an alarming rate but its job
was to find ways to regulate the whole process.
Ms Shokie Bopape-Dlomo,
CEO, Film and Publications Board (FPB), gave a brief summary as to why
amendments were being proposed to the Films and Publications Act (FPA). The
first reason was to identify and rectify the gaps in the Act. Secondly it was
in order to keep up with the sudden convergence of technology. The Bill also
aimed to create certainty and clean up the Act, which had been badly written.
The Bill also aimed to ensure corporate governance compliance, because FPB felt
that this was important; it was time to clarify the roles and responsibilities
of the key players and the board. FPB
wanted to ensure that the institutions had proper resources in order to
effectively carry out their mandate.
Mr Erasmus said that it was not necessary to repeat
any of the purpose of the Bill. It would amend the principal Act of 1996. He
proceeded to outline the clauses of the Bill, and to explain what each
contained (see attached presentation)
Discussion
The Chairperson remarked that this was a thick amendment Bill, which was a
Section 75 Bill.
Mr B Tolo (ANC, Mpumalanga) asked why the Department had not simply drafted
a new Act since there were far too many amendments in the current Bill, which
made it confusing.
Mr Erasmus replied that one of the principles of
legislative drafting was that Acts should be replaced only when they could not
be amended properly by any other means. Working with amendments was in fact much
easier than a complete new draft. The Act was not being re-written but the Bill
was essentially making changes.
Mr Tolo remarked that it
would be useful if the presenters had brought the principal Act to enable the
Members to recognize and understand where the amendments were coming from. They
should not just assume that the members were aware of the principal Act.
Ms F Mazibuko (ANC, Gauteng)
agreed with this comment. She added that
in most cases Members would be moved between committees, and those who were
involved with the original Act were no longer with this Committee..
Mr Erasmus apologised on
behalf of the Department for not bringing the principal Act. He said that they
were working on the assumption that the Committee Members were aware of and had
looked at the Act. He assured the Committee that this oversight would not
recur.
Mr Tolo asked if the
appointment by the Minister would not infringe the independence of the FPB
board. This was because the Minister appointed the CEO, Chair and Vice-Chair
and it would have been more appropriate, in his view, if the rest of the
structure be created by these already appointed people as opposed to the
Minister.
Other Members of the Committee expressed similar concerns.
Dep. Minister Gigaba replied that the mere fact that
the Minister appointed the board and the CEO did not infringe on the
independence because the policy decisions would be made by the Council and not
the minister. The Council then appointed the classification committee, which
dealt with all various classifications and the Council itself did not interfere
with the classification process. Because the Council was not the classification
committee there was unlikely to be any threat to the board’s independence.
Ms Mazibuko asked about the process of appointment.
Dep-Min Gigaba pointed out
that Clause 7, dealing with the appointment, was the exact same procedure that
was being used everywhere else to appoint boards at present. He also said that
the Committee had to keep in mind that headhunting was done by the Council and
the job of the Minister was to only approve or disallow, and it was rare for the Minister to
disapprove of a person chosen by the Council. This could only occur under
extreme cases when the person was not fit and proper person, in the sense of
being of good character and morals. The reason for the fit and proper
requirement was to ensure that people such as pedophiles did not get appointed
to the board and sabotage its work. He did acknowledge that in some cases the
pedophiles tended to be in positions of respect, but they should not be on the
Board. He added that approval by the Minster was formal recognition that a
person had been appointed for the job.
Ms Mazibuko asked for explanation of the process of appointing another
member to the board for the sole purposes of making the deciding vote. She
wanted to know if the appointed member was permanent or just temporary.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that this was an operational
issue. Three people were appointed as classifiers and these classified anything
according to gender, racial and other requirements. Each classifier had to file
a report and give reasons as to why he or she chose a particular
classification. Finally the chief examiner gave the final report. However, in
situations where something became controversial, such as the film "The
Last Temptation of Christ" and there might be disagreements, then a fourth
person would be called in to assist in the final decision.
Mr Iyavar Chetty Head of Legal Services, FPB, added that the
Committee should understand that sometimes the split between the votes was not
50/50. One could have the three classifiers having fixed totally different age
ratings for the same film. A fourth classifier would then give the decisive
vote as to which of the classifications should be accepted.
Mr M Sulliman (ANC,
Northern Cape) remarked that technology was moving at an alarming rate and
youngsters were able to keep up. He then asked if there was a clause in the
Bill that would deal with future advancement as it was obvious that the
legislation would always be behind.
Mr Erasmus referred to Clause 2 of the Bill. This was
intended to act in the best interests of the children and it could be used to
combat any future advancements as they came up.
Ms N Madlala-Magubane (ANC, Gauteng)
asked about the penalties that were imposed upon people who violated the Act,
as she was of the opinion that some groups just kept on violating the law.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that the Board was able to
deal with certain violations, depending on the offences committed. The Act made
provision for the monitor to
work with the police and confiscate material. In most cases these
became criminal issues and the police would then take over.
The Chair asked for the number of board members that used to sit On the previous board, and she also wanted to know if the
new Board number of seven included the Chair and the CEO.
Mr Erasmus replied that the clause stated that the
number of board members should not exceed seven, and this was over and above
the Chair, his Vice and the CEO.
Mr Chetty added that
previously there was no council, and this structure was ushered in by the
amendments. The previous FPB consisted of board and administrative members as
well as 60 examiners. This was actually the first time there was to be a
council of seven members.
Ms Mazibuko asked why Home Affairs was dealing with
the Film and Publications Board matters as these contained a lot of matters related to
communications; she would have thought that the Communications Department was
better equipped to handle it.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that she too had asked this
question; apparently the United Kingdom system had been followed, and the body
that handled child pornography in the UK was the Home Office.
Mr Chetty added that
historically there has never been a classification board. There was simply
censorship, which, according to the previous government, was not about
morality, but about safety and security, as that government did not favour particular groups viewing certain material. Safety
and Security at that time fell under Home Affairs, and Films and Publications remained
under the body of Home Affairs.
Dep Min Gigaba added that
previously Home Affairs fell under the Ministry of the Interior and this
Ministry dealt with a whole range of issues that ranged from Safety and
Security, through emergency services and Home Affairs. The Censorship Board, as
it was known at one stage, fell under Ministry of Interior,.
In 1994 that Ministry was split into Safety and Security, Emergency Services
and Home Affairs in 1994. The censorship board was renamed as FPB, and was left
under Home Affairs but it dealt less with censorship and more with
classification.
Ms Mazibuko asked the Department how it would deal
with institutions that were not affiliated to the National Advertising
Standards Authority (NASA), and was concerned with the probability that NASA
might be flooded with increases for applications for exemption.
Mr Erasmus replied that organisations
were being brought to task over the fact that they did not have self
regulation. Exemptions would apply if the organisation
was affiliated to NASA and this was because NASA had its own regulations. If
the institution was not a member, then it was not being regulated in any way,
and thus would have to bring its material for classification.
Dep-Min Gigaba added that
the influence might have an unintended flipside, as there might be a drop in
the affiliations to NASA, and organizations might prefer to move away from the
self regulation that was provided by NASA. These were matters therefore that
needed to be discussed with the media organs so that even if there were
exemptions there must be a guarantee that the exempted organs were being
regulated in some other way,
in order to level matters out.
Ms Mazibuko asked what XX referred to.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that the meaning of XX was
included in the schedules. It was material for private consumption that could
not be distributed to anyone else; such material might contain matters such as
bestiality. This was also explained in clause 19.
Ms Mazibuko applauded the Department’s efforts
incoming up with such legislation but wanted to know how they were going to
engage with the problem of the internet. It was common knowledge that one could
get nuisance mails over the internet that contained explicit material.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that regulating the internet
was trickier and this was where the overlap with Department of Communications
occurred. She emphasized that this was an area that need more co-operation and
working closely with communications.
Mr Gigaba added that the
government had added precautionary policies to combat pornography in the work
place. One such measure was the installation of firewalls to ensure that
government officials did not watch offensive material at work.
Ms Mazibuko asked how they were going to cover hotels
in their Bill.
Ms Bopape-Dlomo replied that the FPB had also
identified areas such as hotels and airplanes as areas that needed intervention,
but the problem was jurisdiction as they could only regulate on South African
territory. This made it impossible to regulate what was being watched in planes
coming into and going out of South Africa. These were issues that would be
worked on. Hotels were prepared to work cooperatively to minimize the possible
exposure of children to inappropriate material. She added that the FPB was very
much limited in their resources and could not combat technology effectively.
For example there was only one monitor in Gauteng,
and the monitor could not possibly go to all the internet cafés, libraries, video and cinema outlets. Hence it was important to finance
the board appropriately by taking everything into account.
Mr Chetty replied that
distribution of material as X18 fell under clause 24. The problem with this was
that anything that fell under this clause required that the establishment put
up “Not for under 18” notices, but this was unworkable in hotels. Hotels were
exempted on condition that the pay per view material that fell into this
category was accessed at the reception desk after the person had identified
himself or herself as an adult. There was a problem in that not all hotels were
following the procedure.
Ms Mazibuko asked if there had been comparison of
this new Bill to other legislation in the international arena to ensure that it
was moving in the right direction.
Mr Chetty replied
that child pornography was a critical issue that had been hard to regulate. In
the drafting of the Bill they had co-operated with international child agencies
and countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and, to a lesser extent, the
United States of America. He wanted to point out that South African legislation
had also been copied by other countries, and Canada wanted a copy of the
Amendments as they wanted to adopt South Africa’s policies on child pornography
and networking. The Bill tried to keep pace with the changing definitions of
child pornography, which had radically moved to include abuse, torture and brutalisation and exploitation of children. Therefore FPB
was interested more in the objective of protection of children than in meting
out penalties.
The meeting was adjourned.
Audio
No related
Documents
No related documents
Present
- We don't have attendance info for this committee meeting
Download as PDF
You can download this page as a PDF using your browser's print functionality. Click on the "Print" button below and select the "PDF" option under destinations/printers.
See detailed instructions for your browser here.