ActionSA said on Tuesday it has begun preparing legal papers to challenge the decision of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) to classify the investigation report into the conduct of the Presidential Protection Unit members relating to Phala Phala as “Top Secret”.

In March last year, suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu told members of Parliament that the report into the Phala Phala scandal involving Pesident Cyril Ramaphosa was classified as “Top Secret” according to the Minimum Information Security Standards (MISS). 

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont accused the IPID of “a pattern of obfuscation”, saying the party’s appeal filed last month was ignored.

In April last year, ActionSA tried to uncover the findings of the IPID’s investigation, which were then subject to numerous delays, including claims by IPID that its email system had been down.

Beaumont explained that ActionSA’s legal papers would take a three-pronged approach.

It will challenge the constitutionality of the MISS Cabinet policy, which is the basis for how documents are classified.

It will also challenge the rationality of the decision to classify this report as Top Secret and ask the courts to compel IPID to hand over the report to ActionSA.

Beaumont described the MISS Policy as “obscene” in the wide-ranging powers it gives many State officials to classify a report as Top Secret. Claiming it will not hold up to constitutional requirements.

“This is made worse by the policy’s wording, which allows a report to be deemed Top Secret if it ‘can seriously damage the operational relations between institutions'. It is ridiculous that a wide number of State officials are free to keep government reports out of public scrutiny if a report may offend another government institution,” he stated.

He said that the notion that IPID’s report may offend the Presidency or the South African Police Service was not a good enough reason to keep the document from South Africans.

“Similarly, to claim that disclosing the report may disrupt operational planning is to imply an ongoing investigation that IPID will have to prove six years after the robbery,” he added.

He believes the IPID’s report protects the President from the events at Phala Phala.

“After a whitewashed Public Protector’s report and the South African Reserve Bank clearing the President of breaking exchange control laws, IPID’s report is the last opportunity to hold President Cyril Ramaphosa accountable. At the heart of this fight is the knowledge that those entrusted to protect the President were seized by the need to protect him from legal exposure more than they were seized by the need to investigate a crime,” said Beaumont.