Journalist Ranjeni Munusamy indicated on Thursday at the Hefer Commission that she intended asking the high court to protect her from testifying before the commission.
This followed a decision by Judge Joos Hefer that Munusamy must give evidence, although she could object to answering certain questions.
His decision followed morning-long appeals by both Munusamy’s advocate John Campbell and various media organisations that the subpoenaed journalist should not be forced to testify.
In an affidavit handed in as evidence Munusamy alleged that she had received threats if she publicly revealed certain confidential sources.
She earlier used these sources to compile a report published in the City Press. Her story was the first to reveal allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka may have been an apartheid spy.
Lawyers for both Ngcuka and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna asked the commission on Thursday not to grant Munusamy blanket protection from testifying.
Hefer adjourned the proceedings around 12.30pm for the parties to come to an agreement regarding the time frame that should be granted to Mumusamy’s intended high court application. Campbell indicated to the judge that he would ask the high court to review Hefer’s decision that she must testify.
In announcing his decision, Hefer said: “I’m not prepared to grant Munusamy blanket protection. She must appear as a witness”.
“She has the right to object to questions, whatever her reasons. In my view she must be called. If a question arises that she objects to, then she or her advisers must draw my attention to it, and tell me why she objects to it”.
Earlier, Hefer said he had no intention “of doing a bit of first aid on ANC,” after justice minister Penuell Maduna wrote that the commission had been set up to stop the “bleeding in the ANC”.
John Campbell, SC, quoted before the commission from the Sunday Independent’s October 12 edition, in which justice minister Penuell Maduna said “that the setting up of the Hefer commission … was an attempt to stop the bleeding in the (ANC) movement, cauterising the wound inflicted by the continuing backstabbing, smear campaigns and allegations of spying and misuse of office”.
Hefer responded by saying: “I have no intention of doing a bit of first aid on the ANC”.
Editor Raymond Louw this morning requested that the commission to withdraw the subpoena it had served “informally” on former Sunday Times Munusamy.
Munusamy was the main author of a City Press report published on September 7, revealing allegations that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka had been an apartheid spy. President Thabo Mbeki appointed the one-man judicial commission after the allegations against Ngcuka surfaced.
Louw, who was representing various media organisations and was an editor of the Rand Daily Mail for 10 years, told the commission that the constitutional principal of media freedom was at stake and that if reporters were forced to name their sources, the role of the media could be seriously harmed in South Africa.
He said that if journalists were being seen to give evidence, the public’s trust in the media is lowered, “if not destroyed”.
He said that if reporters were forced to reveal their sources, the flow of confidential information to them would dry up.
“We believe the freedom of expression are critical to the free-flow of ideas.”
Munusamy’s lawyer, John Campbell, SC, also dealt with the question of sources and the importance to the nature of journalism.
“If there wasn’t protection, the news would shrivel and shrink and would just be reduced to press releases.”
He asked the commission chairperson, retired judge Joos Hefer, that his client be excused from testifying and be granted absolute immunity.
Campbell also raised the point that Munusamy had not written an article about whether Bulelani Ngcuka was or was not a spy, “she can only tell you that the ANC was investigating whether or not he was a spy”.
Media analyst Anton Harber, being interviewed on e-tv, said the evidence on Thursday had become a “distraction within a distraction.”
“The issue about journalism (revealing their sources) is a side issue. The arms deal was the main track, and then we were sidetracked about allegation about the National Director of Public Prosecutions, and now we’ve been sidetracked with journalists.”