By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has reserved judgment in the MK Party’s bid to prohibit the SABC from using the term government of national unity (GNU).
This comes after the MK Party filed urgent papers in the High Court in July to challenge the SABC’s use of the term.
The matter was expected to be heard on Tuesday, August 13, 2024 but had to stand down until Thursday to give parties time to file their necessary papers.
The MK party is asking the urgent court to, amongst other things, declare the conduct of the SABC as unconstitutional and invalid alleging that it constitutes a breach of the public broadcaster’s independence and public mandate.
In their papers, MK Party said ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa announced the genesis of a GNU after a special national executive committee meeting on 6 June.
“The characterisation of the ANC’s approach or response to the resolution of the hung Parliament impasse or conundrum, which it was facing for the first time at national level, was at best aspirational or overly optimistic and at worst deliberately misleading and opportunistic.
“Either way, it was deeply inaccurate, logically flawed, and/or politically bankrupt. In any event, it never materialised or rose to the heights of a GNU,” said the MK Party in its court papers.
In its papers, the SABC wants the high court to dismiss the case as a waste and abuse of court processes saying the party has failed to exhaust internal processes.
“In the event that the court considers that the ‘impugned decision’ is administrative action as defined in PAJA, the applicants have another problem: the have not complied with section 7 of PAJA, which requires the applicants to exhaust internal remedies: no court or tribunal shall review administrative action in terms of this Act unless any internal remedy provided for any of the law has first been exhausted,” the public broadcaster said in their documents before the court.
During the proceedings, Advocate Terry Motau has told the court the MK Party is not suffering an infringement of its rights when the SABC refers to the administration as a GNU.
He said the government itself referred to itself as such – and the public broadcaster had in no way aligned itself with a particular view on how to refer to it.
Motau said it can’t be disputed there’s controversy surrounding the term – which is also politically contested.
But he said it’s neither here, nor there if politicians differed in their views on the matter because the SABC has been reporting objectively about the debate.
He added the broadcaster has offered its audience a variety of opinions and views from across the political spectrum on the use of this reference.
In reply, MK Party lawyer Dali Mpofu said it was “criminal” for Ramaphosa to subject the country to this inaccuracy.
Mpofu argued the SABC is an organ of state and therefore seeks to enforce rights.
“It’s not about the GNU. It’s about the SABC and about the constitutional obligations of a public broadcaster which is an organ of state. The product that this organ of state produces is of no major significance. The rights that we want to enforce qua organ of state are those rights that reside in Section 33 of the Constitution but as far as the so-called declaratory order is concerned, then it is the other rights.”
Judge Seena Yacoob has since reserved judgment in the matter after hearing arguments from both parties.
Meanwhile the ongoing infighting within MK Party is also set to continue to tear the party apart as long as it fails to elect political structures and leadership to unite the party behind a common goal, according to former senior MK member Nhlanhla Nene.
Nene resigned from the party because MK is being run by Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma-Smabudla.
He also cited the party chopping and changing its public representatives and deviating from its path to achieve economic emancipation.
MK recently unceremoniously fired 18 MPs for mismanagement. The members, whose party memberships were also terminated, were axed barely two months after being sworn in as parliamentarians.
“Today the MK is not wanted even by the EFF because it’s regarded as a Zuma family and siblings project,” said Nene.
He said the party was losing power because of chopping and changing members at national and provincial level, making it “even more difficult for MK to bring about economic emancipation” in South Africa.