HOWARD BARRELL, Johannesburg | Friday 12.00am.
HUMAN Rights Commission chair Barney Pityana co-authored a newspaper article three years ago in which he effectively prejudged the central issue into which he has now called a commission of inquiry — whether there is racism in the South African media.
The terms of reference of the HRC’s controversial inquiry ask it to establish, in the first instance, whether there is racism in the media.
But in 1997 Pityana co-wrote an opinion piece, published by the Sowetan on August 25 of that year, in which he says the media “continues to practise subliminal racism by creating a negative image of Africans”.
Lawyers said this week this amounted to an “effective prejudgment” by a commissioner of one of the key issues the commission must decide.
The legal opinion given to the Mail & Guardian is that a pronouncement like Pityana’s before an inquiry has begun constitutes a strong case for the recusal of whoever uttered it. Pityana’s article therefore throws into doubt his ability to play any further part in the inquiry — if, indeed, it continues in the face of the growing furore over the way it has been conducted so far.
The commission’s terms of reference clearly do not presuppose the existence of racism in the media. Instead they require the commission, among other things, “to investigate the handling of race and possible incidence of racism in the media and whether such racism as may be manifested in these products constitutes a violation of fundamental human rights as set out in the Constitution”; and “to establish the underlying causes and examine the impact on society of racism in the media if such racism is found to be manifested in the product of the media”. (Emphasis added)
Pityana’s Sowetan article, however, reads: “The media is only patriotic to a minority section of our society. What it is doing and continues to do unchallenged is to promote the notion of European conservative superiority and excellence against incompetent and fraudulent Africans who lie their way to the top.”