Civil society organisations on Wednesday warned that repressive laws, such as the proposed Protection of Information Bill (POI) would come back to haunt the state further down the line.
"A Bill, once it's passed into law, does not stay in the statute books only for one administration or one term of government. It stays well into the future and history has shown that repressive laws are not usually misused by the administration that passes them but rather by administrations into the future," said Ayesha Kajee, executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute.
A good example of this is Zimbabwe's Law and Order Maintenance Act which was passed by the Ian Smith regime and greatly misused by the Robert Mugabe regime.
"When our legislature passes a Bill into law, they need to consider that if their worst enemies came into power, how would their worst enemies misuse that [law]?" she said.
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