Background
The South African Human Rights Commission’s (“the Commission” or “the SAHRC”) constitutional mandate is to promote respect for human rights; promote the development and attainment of human rights and monitor and assess the observance of human rights in the Republic (section 184). The Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as “PAIA” or the “Act”) is the piece of legislation giving effect to the constitutional right of access to any information held by the State, and any information held by private bodies and that is required for the exercise and protection of any rights.

In terms of PAIA, information officers (IOs) have a critical role of ensuring the implementation of the Act, by:

• Receiving and responding to PAIA requests;
• Compiling and submitting section 14 manuals to the Commission;
• Compiling and submitting section 15 notices to the Minister of Justice; and
• Compiling and submitting section 32 reports to the Commission

What informed the establishment of the Information Officers Forum

One of the critical challenges of the implementation of the Act has been the non-compliance of public bodies with the requirements of this Act as stated above. The reasons for the failure to comply with the requirements of the Act vary and include the following:

• Lack of awareness by public bodies about their duties in terms of the Act;
• Public bodies not taking their obligations in terms of PAIA seriously;
• Poor information management systems (no records management policies and file plans) in public bodies;
• Failure to delegate information officers’ powers within the public bodies; and
• Inability to identify the Unit or Division to be responsible for administering PAIA

Thus, in light of these challenges, which are major factors hampering proper implementation of a successful access to information regime in South Africa, that a cross-sectoral information officers forum was established on 20 September 2006.

Objectives of the Forum

• To share information on the implementation issues and difficulties on PAIA;
• To help raise awareness of the Act in the public bodies; · To advice the Commission on areas that require its “intervention”;
• To advice I/Os & other sectors on the latest developments on PAIA; and
• To help with capacity building issues in public bodies How to achieve those objectives
• Calling all (D) I/Os to a yearly meeting / indaba to share experiences on implementing the Act;
• Creating a virtual forum (on the Commission’s website) that can be used for continuous discussion of difficulties of the Act;
• Distribute questionnaires on the difficulties they experience and how they can be resolved; and
• Consulting with public bodies on best practice & implementation/processes under PAIA;