Secret lawmaking is a possibility for the first time in democratic South Africa in the parliamentary ad hoc committee's three-month dash to process the controversial General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill.

The chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee on the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill, Jerome Maake, broached the unprecedented possibility of secrecy in lawmaking during a virtual online session on Thursday.

"The information that we might be given by SSA [State Security Agency] ... they might say this [legislative proposal] is not workable and, in explaining why, use classified information... So, for this committee, it would be knowing that no, this clause can't work without even telling anybody. [The committee] doesn't need to tell the public about that."

Maake, who also chairs the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI), which sits behind closed doors, cited the Constitutional Court judgment that those subject to wiretaps must ultimately be told under the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (Rica).

"If SSA has got to explain [Rica] ... they will have to come up maybe with classified information that says this is not possible and we will understand ourselves without telling the public."

That Parliament's rules permit a committee to meet behind closed doors -- on application, for a committee to agree -- and that laws ban public discussion of classified information was confirmed by Parliament's legal adviser,...