CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY AND EVENTS

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Part 1 – The Bill versus the right to freedom of expression

On 10 August 2017, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) made a written submission on the redrafted Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity Bill (the Bill) to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services. 

The Bill seeks to address the increase in cybercrimes and breaches in cybersecurity in today’s digital era. It is a technical piece of legislation which provides a range of new offences pertaining to cybercrime, as well as various new complex structures to monitor cybersecurity, while obliging electronic communications service providers and financial institutions to assist in investigations.

The CFCR restricted its comments to the impact of the prohibition of “malicious communications” on the right to freedom of expression and the impact of certain provisions on the State’s surveillance powers on the rights to privacy and access to the courts.