Vitamin entrepreneur Matthias Rath should not be deprived of the chance to debate with the Treatment Action Campaign even if he hits ”under the belt”, his advocate told the Cape High Court on Thursday.
Even unfair debate could not and should not be restrained, advocate John van der Berg told a full bench of judges.
”There may be some who are wounded in the process but as long as it happens within the ambit of the law it will still be in order,” he said.
Thursday’s hearing was the second round of an application by the TAC for an urgent defamation interdict against Rath and his Doctor Rath Foundation.
Rath has claimed TAC is a ”Trojan Horse” and a front for pharmaceutical companies and that it promotes anti-retrovirals in the knowledge that they kill people.
Van der Berg told the court Rath would suffer ”enormous harm” if the application was granted.
”One side of the debate will be silenced at the convenience of the other side,” he said.
”It’s not a question of stifling the arguments of TAC … the TAC has had free and open debate on their side. We ask for the same on our side.”
He said a TAC advertisement urging HIV positive pregnant women to insist on nevirapine or AZT at birth to prevent mother-to-child transmission constituted ”direct third party advertising”.
Judge Siraj Desai pointed out that these were generic names.
”They are not promoting any particular pharmaceuticals,” he told Van der Berg.
”No, but pharmaceuticals none the less, my lord,” replied Van der Berg.
Several hundred TAC supporters and a group of traditional healers gathered outside the court in a show of support.
The healers said they were members of the Masincedane Traditional Healers Organisation from Paarl.
At the first round of the hearing several weeks ago the Rath Foundation bussed in healers from other provinces to put on a show of support.
That group, the Traditional Healers Organisation, applied at that hearing to be joined as a third respondent along with Rath and the Foundation.
The judges granted the application. – Sapa