Monday, July 2, 2018

Veil Of Secrecy

A few times, I have been asked to agree to secrecy, and put my signature to it. I posted an example last week. In some circumstances, such an agreement may be fine, everything goes according to plan. But suppose something should go wrong -- behind the veil. Say there are false statements, procedural violations, even criminal acts -- but one agreed to secrecy. I have experienced this. Apart from such considerations, however, there are laws which forbid secrecy. Pre-eminent among them in South Africa is the nation's constitution, which as an example protects the rule of law -- and the rule of law rests on the flow of information. This alone rules out total secrecy. OBSERVATION: I am not thinking of confidentiality in counselling, which I have commented on elsewhere on this blog.

No comments: