(MISA/IFEX) – The “Mail & Guardian” newspaper has scored an important victory in a R3 million (approx. US$288,000) defamation suit filed by South Africa Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele against the newspaper. On 27 September 2002, the court ruled that a cabinet minister should not have the standing to sue for defamation when criticised in relation […]
(MISA/IFEX) – The “Mail & Guardian” newspaper has scored an important victory in a R3 million (approx. US$288,000) defamation suit filed by South Africa Housing Minister Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele against the newspaper. On 27 September 2002, the court ruled that a cabinet minister should not have the standing to sue for defamation when criticised in relation to the execution of her function as a minister.
The minister launched the suit following the newspaper’s publication of a report in December 1998 evaluating ministers’ performances. The report was critical of Mthembi-Mahanyele’s actions at the time. It said she had “shown she cannot deliver in a key ministry”, and criticised her for allegedly awarding a massive housing contract to a close friend.
The court held that government ministers could not sue for defamation. It said parliamentarians had a platform in the National Assembly, where they had a privilege and were protected from legal action for whatever they said.
The court also suggested the president could establish a commission of inquiry to investigate the factual correctness of the newspaper’s statements if he so wished. However, the court also said that the ruling did not signify that media could tarnish the reputation of cabinet ministers, specifying that there were other remedies that could preclude the media from attacking ministers’ reputations.
A daily newspaper quoted Mthembi-Mahanyele’s lawyer as commenting, in response to the ruling, “The effect of that ruling is that no cabinet minister can ever dream of instituting a defamation suit against anyone. And it doesn’t matter how libelous the statement is that has been published.”
Howard Barrel, the outgoing “Mail & Guardian” editor, told MISA-South Africa that the case has an interesting effect. “Basically, the judge recalled that readers of the ‘M&G’ tended to read many other newspapers; this means by the time they read the alleged defamatory statement, they had already read numerous other highly unfavourable reports about the Minister. This in turn means that the ‘M&G’ article did not reduce any further the reputation of the Minister.”
Background Information
Housing Minister Mthembi-Mahanyele launched a defamation action against the “Mail & Guardian” in the Johannesburg High Court on 11 October 2001, in response to how she fared in the newspaper’s 1998 cabinet “report card”.
The report card, which gave Mthembi-Mahanyele an “F”, claimed that a controversial housing affair and her sacking of former director general Billy Cobbett haunted her, the “Mail & Guardian” reported on 12 October 2001.
With little recent case law in South Africa on this issue, the trial has set an important precedent.
