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SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS
Supplementary
Argument
CERTIFICATION OF NEW CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT: SCHEDULE
5
ARCHIVES OTHER THAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES
This document serves to clarify the attached submission, NC 4/3/1 of 31
May 1996.
PROVISION OF PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT FOR
PROFESSIONAL ARCHIVES SERVICES
From its formal establishment in terms
of the Public Archives Act 1922 (No. 9 of 1922), South Africa's public archives
system been
geographically decentralised but managed under national
administrative control. In addition to the Service's supervision of records
of
national and provincial governments, responsible for records of local
authorities was assigned in terms of Archives Act, 1962
(No. 6 of 1962).
National administrative control has benefited the development of sophisticated
archival services in the four former
provincial capitals. Despite limited
archival expertise available in the country, the support and guidance provided
from the national
office facilitated application of uniform procedures and
standards, which in turn served to develop comprehensive public archives
services.
The South Africa Society of Archivists (SASA) accepts that
devolution of functions to provincial governments embodied in the new
Constitution
will entail relinquishing the present unified archival system and
that provincialization of archival services will preclude formal
administrative
ties between national provincial archives services. However, SASA is deeply
concerned the classification of provincial
archives as an exclusive provincial
competence, as it implies that provincial archive ‑services are to be
denied any form of
professional guidance from ‑the National Archives.
Section 3 (g) of the National Archives of South Africa Bill, B17-96, which
was
tabled in Parliament February 1996, provides that the National Archives shall
"assist, support, set standards for and provide
professional guidelines to
provincial archives services".
This provision was made with the full
support of all provincial, archival authorities in the Consultative Forum on
Archival Management
and Legislation and is the core provision around which a new
archival system was to evolve. The archival profession not consulted
regarding
the reclassification of the function as an exclusive provincial competence. In
five of the nine provinces, little or no
archival infrastructure currently
exists. But provinces have custody of national government records, e.g. those
of magistrates and
regional offices of the national government, ensure proper
management and preservation of, and access by the public to these records,
as
well as those of a provincial nature, it is essential that uniformity of
procedures be maintained across the nation. The widespread
lack of archival
expertise coupled with, the general disinclination of provincial governments to
provide adequate resources for archives
services is cause for alarm. It is
already apparent in several provinces that one of the main functions of a public
archives service,
that of ensuring that proper procedures are developed to
manage current governmental records, is not being carried out. The consequences
for efficient, government, for public transparency, and ultimately, preservation
of the provincial documentary heritage, are dire.
MAINTENANCE OF
NATIONAL AUTOMATED ARCHIVAL INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
The State
Archives Service has since 1974 developed a national automated archival
information system in which the archives of the
former four provinces are fully
integrated. The retrieval system was acknowledged as an international leader
and remains an important
national resource. The system supports public access
government records and will be an important instrument in application of the
proposed Open Democracy legislation. The need to maintain and develop the
retrieval system to include the provinces was fully supported
by the
Consultative Forum Archival Management and Legislation. Accordingly provision
was made in section 3 (e) of the National Archives
of South Africa Bill,
B17-1996 that the National Archives shall "maintain national automated archival
information retrieval system,
in which all provincial archives services shall
participate".
The maintenance of the existing retrieval system is a
notable instance in which uniformity across the nation is required. It is
envisaged
that the National Archives would continue to process data that has
been supplied by provincial archives services. To enable such
processing and
facilitate optimal use of the system, it will be essential for standards to be
set and guidelines to provided by the
National
Archives.
CONCLUSION
A constitutional and legislative basis
is required to empower National Archives to provide professional guidance to
provincial ‑archives
services, as uniformity across the nation is required
in several critical archival functions. Without such empowerment, the National
Archives will have no authority to intervene in provinces in which gross neglect
of archival services is occurring. Furthermore,
the National Archives will be
under no obligation to make its expertise available to provinces in need of it.
SASA contends that
the classification of provincial archives services as an
exclusive provincial competence does not comply with constitutional principle
XXI (4) in Schedule 4 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act,
1993 (Act. No. 200 of 1993) and that provincial archives
should be classified
as a concurrent ‑national and provincial competence.
CLIVE
KIRKWOOD
CHAIRPERSON
NATIONAL COMMITTEE
7 June
1996
SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY OF ARCHIVISTS
CERTIFICATION OF NEW CONSTITUTIONAL TEXT: SCHEDULE 5
- Schedule
5 of the new Constitution specifies archives other ‑than national archives
as an exclusive provincial legislative competence.
This differs from the
interim Constitution (Act No. 200 of 1993), section 126 of which assigned
concurrent competence with Parliament
to provincial legislatures to make
provincial laws with regard to matters which fell in the functional areas
specified in Schedule
6. Cultural matters were a Schedule 6 functional area,
incorporating archival services.
- . The
provision of concurrent competence in the archival functional area enabled the
following core provisions to be made in section
3 of the National Archives of
South Africa Bill, B17-96 (which was tabled in Parliament in February
1996):
"objects and functions of National Archives
3. The objects and functions of the National Archives shall be to -
(e) maintain a national automated archival information retrieval
system, in which all provincial archives services shall
participate
(g) assist, support, set standards for and provide professional guidelines
to provincial archives services;"
- It
is the contention of the South African Society of Archivists that the
classification of provincial archives services as an exclusive
provincial
competence does not comply with constitutional principle XXI (4) of Schedule 4
of the interim Constitution, viz.: "Where
uniformity across the nation is
required for a particular function, the legislative power over that function
should be allocated
predominantly, if not wholly, to the national
government.”
- The
National Archives of South Africa Bill was drafted through a fully consultative
process involving all provincial governments,
and complete agreement was
achieved regarding all its provisions. The classification of provincial
archives services as an exclusive
provincial competence would imply that the
provisions of the Bill mentioned in paragraph 2 above would be invalid. This in
turn
would mean that essential archival functions, such as the national
automated archival retrieval system, would have no legislative
basis. This
position would hold grave implications for the ability of public archives
services to fulfil their obligations in a democratic
society, as envisaged in
e.g. the Open Democracy Bill.
- . It
is the contention of the South African Society of Archivists that archives
should be retained as a concurrent national and provincial
legislative
competence.
CLIVE KIRKWOOD
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