SECTOR 1 The Bill also allows commercial information held by the state to be easily classified, which would make it difficult or even impossible to scrutinise tender processes or the activities of state-run enterprises. The bill does not provide for any independent monitoring or appeals process. Leaking or being in possession of classified documents could be sanctioned with jail terms of up to 25 years. Journalists would be unable to use a public interest defence. Furthermore, the ANC has resurrected and is vigorously pushing the idea of creating a statutory Media Appeals Tribunal set up by Parliament which would enforce a code of conduct (see indicator 4.1). Because both the bill and the tribunal are still under discussion and have not yet become law they were not taken into account in the scoring for this indicator. Scores: Individual scores: 1 Country does not meet indicator 2 Country meets only a few aspects of indicator 3 Country meets some aspects of indicator 4 Country meets most aspects of indicator. 5 Country meets all aspects of the indicator Average score: 4.0 (2008 = 3.3; 2006 = 2.8) 1.4 Government makes every effort to honour regional and international instruments on freedom of expression and the media. The Constitution of South Africa was passed before many regional or continental instruments were developed and has often served as a model. The Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, for example, adopted by the African Commission on Humans and Peoples Rights in 2002 was, in part, based on the South African Bill of Rights. However, in practice the South African government seems to be in contravention of many of the AU and SADC protocols that it is party to. AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER SOUTH AFRICA 2010 15