Malema says he won't pay R50K

ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said he would not pay the R50 000 fine imposed on him by the Equality Court in Johannesburg, the Sowetan newspaper reported on Friday.

“I deliberately refuse to pay the R50 000 as a matter of principle. They can attach all my property,” Malema told members of the ANC Youth League branch in Midrand.

He said “every piece of legislation will be used to fight this court order”.

Malema was fined R50 000 after losing a case brought against him by the Sonke Gender Justice Network.

The Equality Court ruled he had to apologise for saying in public that President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser had a “nice time”.

The ruling also ordered him to pay the fine to a centre for abused women, which he had failed to do up to now, prompting the Sonke Gender Justice Group to start attaching his assets.

The Sowetan reported that Mbuyiselo Botha of Sonke Gender Justice Network—the group that brought the complaint against Malema—declined to comment on Thursday, saying he would focus on opposing Malema’s application for condonation. “It is our position that all South Africans should subject themselves to the rule of law. No one is above the law,” Botha said.

He has now applied to court for a condonation order, which would ask the court to condone, or forgive the fact that he had not paid his fine, but he would have to give good reasons.—Sapa