(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an FXI press statement: FXI and ODAC condemn gag on health officials The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) are deeply disturbed by reports of an instruction given by Health Department Director-General Thami Mseleku to stop provincial health officials commenting on HIV and AIDS. We […]
(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an FXI press statement:
FXI and ODAC condemn gag on health officials
The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and Open Democracy Advice Centre (ODAC) are deeply disturbed by reports of an instruction given by Health Department Director-General Thami Mseleku to stop provincial health officials commenting on HIV and AIDS. We believe that the instruction is an unreasonable limitation on the officials’ right to freedom of expression and thus unconstitutional.
The AIDS pandemic in South Africa has reached such critical proportions that it demands extensive public discussion and debate. However, rather than engaging with the general public and its detractors in an open process of learning and consensus-building, the Health Department has seen fit to attempt to stifle this process by gagging its own employees from speaking to the media; a move that we interpret as censorship.
If allowed to go unchallenged, this decision will set an extremely negative precedent for freedom of expression in our public service, because it will create a climate of self-censorship at all levels of government. It will mean that employees will have to refrain from any form of commentary on or reasonable criticism of their government out of fear of being dismissed.
This is surely not what a democracy is about. As workers and citizens of this country, these civil servants have an inalienable right to engage in political speech about matters of public interest, and should be able to do so freely. This is especially so in the current climate of fear, ignorance, confusion and deliberate misinformation about HIV/AIDS in South Africa. We are concerned that 12 years after our hard fought democracy was achieved, we are now moving backwards to the era of censorship where freedom of expression in the workplace was denied.
The Department’s order “not to give any interview to any media related to the Aids issue or the Lewis visit” is in clear violation of the Constitution, which accords everyone the right to freedom expression, including the right to impart ideas, even those which may be critical of government. This right naturally extends to the workplace. Moreover, the media and the public alike have a right of access to information held by the state.
Our courts have consistently upheld the right of workers to engage in political speech, most famously in the 1999 Constitutional Court case of SANDF Union vs Minister of Defence. In the recent case of Costa Gazidis vs The Minister of Public Service and Administration, Dr Gazidis was dismissed from the Department of Health for a media interview in which he criticized the Minister of Health by stating that he was soliciting support in order to have the Minister charged with manslaughter because she refused to provide AZT to pregnant women. The Pretoria High Court found that Dr Gazidis’ criticism of government’s policy in the media, including his utterance about the Minister of Health, did not amount or constitute prejudice to the administration of the Department. Dr Gazidis was therefore reinstated. The FXI has condemned similarly unlawful attempts by the Western Cape Health Department to gag doctors from speaking to the media.
The FXI and ODAC call on the Health Department to desist from further attempts to gag its workers. We encourage the Department instead to embrace the multitude of divergent views on health policy in South Africa and pay particular attention to the views of its own workers at the coalface of the fight against HIV/AIDS. By listening and engaging, instead of threatening and gagging, the Department can only improve its own policies as well as its image locally and internationally.
