Johannesburg – The media scored a rare victory over the ANC in the battle of ideas and policy on self-regulation on Wednesday when the ruling party caved in and sided with journalists on decriminalising defamation.
This comes ahead of the party’s legal research group workshop on Saturday to canvass public views on criminal defamation.
The ANC’s legal group, led by Krish Naidoo, said the objective of the workshop was to get views from civil society organisations and the SA National Editor’s Forum (Sanef) to develop a “composite progressive approach on the question of criminal defamation”.
“The formation of the legal research group is a fresh approach to working with the media on matters of common interest,” said Naidoo. “The idea is to get the voices of civil society together with the ANC and come up with a composite approach, so that when we take it forward, it becomes a matter from all sectors of society and not only the ANC’s views.”
He said the ANC was looking at what was happening in other jurisdictions around the world, including the UK where defamation was decriminalised in 2009.
More…
- SA needs more white soldiers, says defence minister
- South African science needs more money to be competitive: Pandor
- Prisoners’ right to vote ‘sabotaged’
“We’ve got very well defined civil law in this country when one’s reputation has been harmed,” said Naidoo. “Why should a journalist be made a criminal in this country for expressing a view? If it’s hate speech, you’ve got the section 16 of the constitution that deals with that and you have the Equality Court.
“One must be careful of over-regulation also because people will stop talking – and if people stop talking in a young democracy, what value system are you going to be building going forward? There will be no critical debate.”
Moshoeshoe Monare, Sanef’s deputy chairman, said: “On this matter, the irony is that politicians are with us but the judges are the ones that are hardliners.
“We made clear, especially after the (Cecil Motsepe) case, that we will work hard to ensure that criminal defamation is erased from our common law.”
Former Sowetan journalist Cecil Motsepe was convicted of criminal defamation in 2009 following a series of articles he wrote about Gauteng magistrate Marius Serfontein.
The Pretoria High Court overturned his sentence in 2014 on appeal, but maintained that criminal defamation was in line with the country’s constitution.
-“iol”