SOS welcomes court’s dismissal of MK’s bid to invalidate SABC’s use of the term ‘GNU’

SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition welcomes the ruling of the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court, Johannesburg, in the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) v the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) matter. The Court dismissed, with costs, the MK party’s application to invalidate and prohibit the SABC from using the term “Government of National Unity” (GNU). The MK party had argued that the SABC’s use of the term was unconstitutional and invalid. 

We are pleased that the Court recognised the frivolity of this challenge. In her ruling, Judge Denise Fisher clarified that the matter was outside the Court’s jurisdiction and that the MK party’s case did not raise a constitutional issue.

We echo the inference that courts are not suitable forums to solve political issues. Courts exist to solve and are final arbiters of legal issues. The MK party should have used proper complaints channels before resorting to legal action, these include lodging a complaint with the Press Council of South Africa, since the SABC’s Editorial Policies prescribe that all SABC news programmes on all platforms must adhere to the Press Code, or the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) for programme related complaints or the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)’s Complaints and Compliance Committee (CCC) for breaching legal prescripts such as the Broadcasting Act of 1999. We find it deeply concerning that these mechanisms were bypassed.

It is also our understanding that such unwarranted legal action undermines the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression of the public broadcaster and threatens the SABC’s editorial independence. 

We hope this ruling reaffirms that the SABC’s editorial independence must always be safeguarded while sending a strong message that the SABC should not be used as a battleground for political disputes. 

For more information contact: 

Uyanda Siyotula (SOS National Coordinator)

[email protected]

060 691 2462