OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 7.00PM.
THE Natal High Court today gave a landmark judgment in favour of press freedom, dismissing with costs an application by the Inkatha Freedom Party to gag the Mail & Guardian over a report on a scheme to siphon money money from provincial government into party coffers.
The party applied to the High Court on Wednesday to compel the paper to remove all remaining copies of its August 7 issue from KwaZulu-Natal and to refrain from publishing and “defamatory material” about the party in future. The application was brought by IFP general secretary MZ Khumalo.
Judge Hillary Squires said he cold not rule on whether the article – “How IFP milked KwaZulu-Natal of millions” – was defamatory, although he noted that it was a “balanced investigation where allegations are commented on and which carried the point of view of the other side”.
He ruled that, in the requirement for the interdict, the balance of convenience was for the Mail & Guardian. “There is no proper or acceptable basis for granting the interdict even if the article is defamatory”.
He pointed out that in the light of the constitutional right to freedom of expression, political parties had the right to sue for defamation, but their right was weaker than that of a private individual. He said the law of defamation was undergoing change in the light of the new Constitution.
He also rejected the IFP’s request to prevent all further defamatory articles. “This would constitute gag on the newspaper which would violate free speech and freedom of the press and can be dismissed out of hand… Until a report is found to be defamatory, the publication of it cannot be restrained.”
Mail & Guardian editor Phillip van Niekerk welcomed the judgement, saying that it is important that political parties develop a more robust attitude to criticism and to thorough investigative reporting on the activies of their officials, rather than seeking to hide behind the law.