Defamation ruling silenced robust debate – Zuma

The Constitutional Court should allow former President Jacob Zuma to challenge the ruling that he defamed his former Tourism Minister, Derek Hanekom, by calling him a ‘known enemy agent’, because the judgment was akin to silencing robust debate, his lawyer said, according to a Business Day report by legal writer Karyn Maughan. His defamation case against Zuma has its genesis in a tweet posted by the former President, just days after Zuma told the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that foreign and apartheid intelligence agencies had planted agents within the ANC and he knew the identities of these ‘spies’. Later, in response to EFF leader Julius Malema’s claims that Hanekom ‘gave us the list of the ANC MPs who were going to vote with us in the vote of no confidence against Jacob Zuma’, the former President tweeted: ‘I’m not surprised by @Julius_S_Malema revelations regarding @Derek_Hanekom. It is part of the plan I mentioned at the Zondo Commission. @Derek_Hanekom is a known enemy agent.’ Hanekom lodged a defamation case against Zuma at the KZN High Court and won. ‘What is particularly concerning about the order of the learned judge (Dhaya Pillay) is that it bans Mr Zuma from ever speaking about Mr Hanekom as an enemy agent or apartheid spy,’ Zuma’s newly-appointed lawyer, Eric Mabuza, argued in court papers filed at the Constitutional Court. ‘This is so despite the fact that in future Mr Zuma may well produce evidence to back up any claim he will make in the future.’

Mabuza argued that his appeal involved ‘adjudicating the appropriate limits’ of the constitutional right to freedom of expression on Twitter. He accused Pillay of failing to deal with Zuma’s argument that his comments on Twitter about Hanekom enjoyed the protection of section 16 of the Constitution – in other words, the right to free speech, notes the Business Day report. According to Mabuza, there were such significant disputes between Hanekom and Zuma’s testimony that Pillay should have ‘called for oral evidence’ to determine whether the former President had intentionally defamed his ex-Minister. Zuma took the case to the SCA after the High Court refused him leave to appeal, saying it saw no prospect of success. The SCA in May also dismissed Zuma’s application to appeal Pillay’s ruling. Pillay ordered Zuma to delete the offending tweet within 24 hours and publish an apology to Hanekom. While Hanekom has sued Zuma for R500 000 in damages, the determination of the amount the former President will be ordered to pay Hanekom has been put on ice pending resolution of his current attempt to appeal Pillay’s original ruling. However, notes the report, getting the Constitutional Court to hear the case may prove challenging given that the SCA found that there was no reasonable prospect of success in an appeal and that there ‘was no other compelling reason’ why an appeal should be heard.

Full City Press report