Pat Sidley
A RAND Supreme Court judge has issued an extraordinary=20 gagging order aimed at silencing speculation about a=20 controversial businessman’s private life and its=20 confusion with his business tasks.
The businessman, Bart Dorrestein is the deputy=20 executive chairman of the large property development=20 company Stocks and Stocks listed on the Johannesburg=20 Stock Exchange.
His company has been embroiled in an argument with=20 tenants at=20
its upmarket Sandton development, Sandton Square, where=20 struggling traders have engaged in a rent boycott to=20 draw attention to their grievances against the=20
They maintain the reason why so many of the businesses=20 at the square are struggling with few customers and low=20 cash flows is due to the fact that Stocks and Stocks=20 has failed to live up to its promises made to tenants=20 about the development of Sandton Square.
This week Judge Max Labe granted a sweeping order=20 stopping almost all newspapers from printing any=20 “statements which are insulting or defamatory” in=20 regard to Dorrestein’s personal life.
The judge also ordered that the proceedings of the=20 court which led to the order should be kept secret.
The order was read out (a stipulation of the writ) on=20 Thursday at a press conference held at Sandton Square=20 where several newspaper representatives, previously=20 disinterested in the issue, had gathered — their=20 curiosity aroused by the order.
None of the newspapers gagged (which included the Mail=20 & Guardian, “All Caxton Press”, “All Argus Press” and=20 “All Times Media”) were given an opportunity to respond=20 to the order and would have to fight in court for the=20 right to publish any of the allegations.
Law Professor Dennis Davis described the order as=20 “extraordinary” and said the order may have contravened=20 the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
Much depended on the outcome of the legal debate (to be=20 decided later this year) as to whether the Bill of=20 Rights applied only to the relationship of the state to=20 the citizens — or whether its terms applied between=20 persons in the country as well.
If the Bill of Rights applied between citizens, said=20 Davis, then the court order had infringed the freedom=20 of expression clauses. He also believed the interdicted=20 newspapers had a right to know on what basis they were=20 being gagged.
They had a right, according to the constitution he=20 said, to all information about them held by an organ of=20 state, of which the judiciary was one.
He said the Transvaal Provincial Division of the=20 Supreme Court had up until now held that the freedom of=20 expression clause only applied when the state was=20 involved. This was to be challenged later this year.
Meanwhile, angry Sandton Square traders have resolved=20 to continue their rent boycott, having been further=20 irritated by Stocks & Stocks’s refusal to recognise=20 their tenants association.
It is understood they are seeking relief from the=20 courts on the basis that they were given a false=20 picture of the development when they leased their=20 premises off the plans, before completion of the=20