New law Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) could easily be abused by those trying to prevent information from reaching the public domain, to hide their wrongdoing or shortcomings.
This is according to a legal expert and AfriForum after Tuesday's court decision that ordered that the 2021 matric results be published on media platforms after the department of basic education (DBE) had initially stated that in compliance with the POPIA it wouldn't be making the results public, including through the media for the first time.
It took a legal challenge from AfriForum, pupil Anlé Spies, who is awaiting her matric results, and Maroela Media over the department's decision for it to be overturned.
Law expert Dr Llewellyn Curlewis, from the University of Pretoria, said as there was no case law on the POPIA as it's a new legislation, this was the beginning of possible many other cases which would be before SA courts.
“Any legislation can be abused, it's easy to hide behind the act to hide things that could lead to further investigation of one's wrongdoing,” Curlewis said.
He said he felt it was a wise move for the department not to oppose the application by Spies, AfriForum and Maroela Media.
“I'm not surprised that the department initially had the stance that it may be contravening the POPIA from that perspective, it was initially a very good decision for them to rather have it determined by a court of law whether it would be a contravention or not,” Curlewis said.
Curlewis said the POPIA, which only came into effect on July 1 2021, is “a new piece of legislation, so there's no case law which gives the department a direction.”
AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said they wanted to make sure that the act doesn't get applied to stop even the publication of harmless information such as matric results.
“The first thing was to get clarity on the legal situation of the POPIA and secondly, because we believe it's in the interest of everybody in the country that they [matric results] be published,” Kriel said.
He said even though they were in support of the protection of personal information, but with the publication of matriculants' exam numbers, there was no infringement on the Act.
“The publication of the matric results creates transparency with regards to what's happening at which schools and you can identify where the problems are,” Kriel said.
Kriel said to ensure that there's what he called “balance between protection of personal information and being transparent”.
Elijah Mhlanga, the department's spokesperson, said they would abide by the ruling and make the results available to all stakeholders that requested access.
“The first respondent [DBE] is ordered to publish the National Senior Certificate results on public platforms [media platforms] as was the practice in previous years, concurrently with making available the results to the schools that had been attended by the learners,” read the court order.
Basic education minister Angie Motshekga will announce the matric results on on Thursday and pupils will be able to get them on various platforms and at their respective schools.
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