The government has chosen an unlikely weapon in its fight to prevent top-secret papers on the multibillion-rand arms deal being handed over to a civil pressure group - the infamous Watergate scandal.

In an application this week in the Cape High Court, Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (Ecaar) will attempt to force the government to hand over documents - including four loan agreements relating to the acquisition of Gripen fighter jets and Hawk fighter trainers, cabinet decisions and other papers - that form the financial basis of the arms deal.

Ecaar has challenged, among other things, the constitutionality of secrecy provisions in the Defence Act and the Arms Acquisition Act because they bar it from access to these documents.

Neither the minister of justice nor of defence has responded to the application to have the secrecy provisions declared unconstitutional.

But advocates Michael Kuper SC and Patrick Mtshaulana, for the government, have prepared in papers filed with the Cape High Court a multilayered attack to stave off Ecaar's challenge:

Firstly, they argue, Ecaar has chosen the wrong court in which to pick a fight. Ecaar should instead have taken it to the Pretoria High Court, where most cases involving the state are heard;

Secondly, Ecaar as a group does not have the standing to bring such an application;

Thirdly, if the court allows Ecaar to bring the application in the Cape High Court, the organisation still should not be given access to the papers because it doesn't need them anyway;

Fourthly, the government's counsel claim, it is bad law on the part of Ecaar to try to use the constitution to gain access to the documents; and

Finally, they submit that the court should look at how other countries treat confidential documents - such as in the Watergate scandal, which brought down American president Richard Nixon.

In a case in which United States prosecutors tried to access information on the scandal, the court ruled that military, diplomatic and sensitive national security secrets needed to be protected from public scrutiny.

The government claims that the documents Ecaar is seeking fall into this category.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and The Star.