POOR PRETEXTS FOR HEAVY INTERVENTIONS

Current proposals to limit both the freedom of the press and property rights are being justified by flimsy pretexts. They are instead a manifestation of the same thing — a determination to extend the power of the state and of the ruling party.

Seeking to justify proposals to establish a tribunal to regulate the media, Ms Jessie Duarte, new spokeswoman for the African National Congress (ANC), said earlier this year that the Press Ombudsman was ‘toothless’.

But is the ombudsman toothless? The report of the outgoing ombudsman, Mr Ed Linington, for the eighteen-month period from 1st January 2006 to 31st July 2007 suggests not. Says he, ‘Government, from the president down, have frequently used our services over the years, and have mostly succeeded in having their complaints upheld. They include both presidents, speakers of Parliament, cabinet ministers, provincial government heads, MPs, and political parties, and [in] this period alone they numbered at least 18 prominent complainants’.

Ms Duarte’s claim that the ombudsman is toothless is therefore disingenuous.Probably what she and her party object to is the very principle of self-regulation. Yet, as the ombudsman points out, press self-regulation is common to democracies around the world: ‘In essence, the newspapers voluntarily bind themselves to honour a press code and to abide by the decisions of a press council or ombudsman when they are alleged to have contravened the code… The whole purpose of the ombudsman’s office is to provide a quick and inexpensive resolution for people who feel they have been wronged by something that has appeared in a newspaper. Complainants cannot get monetary relief — for that they must go to court, a lengthy and costly process — but in any case most want the record put straight, which is what is done where justified’.

Ms Duarte says the SABC is responsible to Parliament but the print media to nobody. In terms of her party’s policy of deploying its members to run public institutions, the envisaged tribunal will no doubt be dominated by the ANC.

If the pretext for setting up a press tribunal is flimsy, the same applies to the Expropriation Bill currently going through Parliament. The ‘willing-buyerwilling- seller’ approach to land reform has supposedly not worked. Yet if the pace of land transfer from white to black has been slow, there is little evidence that current property rights are to blame. The ANC was talking about expropriation a long time ago, before ‘willingbuyer- willing-seller’ was even tried. (An analysis of the Expropriation Bill will appear in the next issue of Fast Facts.)

Slowly, but steadily, the ANC is driving South Africa towards more authoritarianism. Many groups will try to stop this. The courts are likely to be called upon to do so as well. Let us hope  they can.  — John Kane-Berman