It’s an offence to snub Parly

ARE people who have been summoned to give evidence before Parliament or a parliamentary committee entitled to refuse to answer questions put to them?

This issue arose when Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was conducting investigations into the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara) pursuant to reports on that body compiled by Auditor-General Mildred Chiri. According to the PAC report presented to the National Assembly in April: The Transport minister and his permanent secretary initially refused to give evidence to the committee on the ground that the minister had not yet presented the Auditor-General’s report to Parliament (though his failure to do so breached section 12 of the Audit Office Act)

Officials of a company called Univern refused to give evidence about its dealings with Zinara, citing legal privilege.

PAC was emphatically of the view that witnesses appearing before Parliament and its committees were obliged to answer questions put to them and that private institutions which received resources from the State (such as Univern) did not enjoy any form of privilege. In this article we shall see whether PAC’s view is correct.

Generally, witnesses giving evidence in court must answer truthfully all questions put to them. However they have a right not to answer some questions. This right is called a “privilege” and the evidence they do not have to give is called “privileged evidence”. Our law recognises several types of privilege:

Hence, as Parliament is the judge of what is relevant, the only privilege a witness can claim is the public interest privilege — and as we have pointed out, that privilege arises only if the court or tribunal rules that the evidence is indeed protected by privilege.

It appears, therefore, that witnesses before Parliament and its committees are not entitled to the privilege against self-incrimination or to legal practitioner and client privilege, which means:

They have to answer questions even if the answers would render them liable to criminal prosecution, and;

Lawyers have to disclose confidential communications with their clients.

Witnesses appearing before parliamentary committees in other democracies such as the United Kingdom and Australia cannot rely on privilege to avoid answering questions.

Evidence given by a witness before a parliamentary committee cannot be used elsewhere, for example in a court, without the Speaker’s permission. So the Speaker has to consent before incriminating evidence can be used against the person who gave it.

It is essential for good governance that Parliament carries out its role of supervising other organs of the State — we deal with this role below — and for that purpose Parliament and its committees must have full power to summon witnesses and get information from them. In this regard the public interest overrides the interests of individual witnesses.

People summoned to give evidence before Parliament or a committee of Parliament are generally not entitled to refuse to answer questions put to them.

The only ground on which they can legitimately do so is the one set out in section 12 of the Privileges, Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act, namely that of privilege in the public interest — and it is for Parliament or its committee to determine whether the witness is entitled to that privilege.

Veritas