FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION & MEDIA FREEDOM

Being free and having the unfettered right to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints and fears is fundamental to an open society and a functioning democracy. Franklin D Roosevelt made the point that the "only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government".

The interests of the people are presently under assault through the ANC targeting the media for purposes of controlling it. Yet it is the state that is failing the people, either because its officials are largely incompetent or substantially corrupt. The media may make mistakes, but trying to shoot the messenger will hardly help to rectify a bad state of affairs.

Our liberty is underpinned by freedom of expression. If one plank of that freedom is taken away, the entire structure becomes weakened.

The government's motives for creating a Media Appeals Tribunal are suspect. It is failing dismally to earn a good press because of its own mammoth failures and rampant corruption and it would like to muzzle the press and stifle investigative journalism. The acronym for the Media Appeals Tribunal is MAT and it is perfectly clear that government would love and desire to have as many matters swept under the mat and not have them exposed in public.

South Africa needs a strong and competent government on the one hand but it also needs people who are strong enough and well informed to maintain sovereign control over the government. All of this requires unbridled media freedom. Mistakes that the media make can be corrected but the mistakes that government make are so much more to our detriment. Nelson Mandela never really had to be antagonistic towards the media because he did the right things, said the right things, and acted in the right way. Therefore, as one of the few ANC leaders brave enough to speak out against this new tendency, Tokyo Sexwale has been pointing out that Mandela remained consistently a champion of a free press.

Mandela upheld moral values and acted in conformity with those values. He got the good press that he got because he earned it. Some members of the present cabinet get negative media attention because they have departed from Mandela's sterling values. It is these members of the cabinet who are most vociferous in demanding action against the media.

The likes of Zuma, Nyanda, Nzimande and others who have substantial suspect business dealings or are guilty of conspicuous consumption are at the forefront of wanting to muzzle the press. List those who are clamouring for these restraining legal instruments and then scrutinise their personal conduct and the reasons become immediately apparent.

Not everyone in the ANC is desirous of bridling the media. As in Animal Farm, those who in our country were once the self-proclaimed champions of freedom are now wanting to alter the scope of our freedom and right to free expression. We should be very, very wary, as the animals in that fable found out too late.

The Vienna based International Press Institute (IPI) has written to President Zuma urging him to address concerns regarding press freedom.

The IPI makes the point that the current Press Council had proved its independence and had frequently ruled in favour of the ANC and of public officials. In the view of IPI, retracting statements and printing corrections is "the ultimate sanction for a business depending on its consumer's loyalty and trust."

The IPI very correctly asserts that if MAT is appointed by Parliament, "it will face an inherent conflict of interest that will skew its rulings in favour of public and party officials and essentially amount to government oversight of the media."

Our Parliament is unfortunately a lapdog of the Executive even though it was not intended to be this way in the Constitution. The party list system enforces conformity among ruling party MPs with the wishes of the Executive. Generally what the Executive wants the legislature delivers and when the legislature demands accountability it meets only with rebuffs. Our right to freedom of expression is not mutually exclusive of the freedom of the press. Curb the press and we as a people are on the way towards authoritarianism.

Stop investigative journalism in its track and we as the people will have heavy imposition of taxes on us so that serial looting on a larger scale can be sustained. There is no benefit for society from the Media Appeals Tribunal. There is only a serious loss for society.

It would be a perverse subversion of the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution to protect the corrupt and punish those who would boldly and publicly hold them accountable. The shabbier the reputation of this government becomes, the harder it will strive to shield itself and block off the flow of information.

This government was voted in by 67% of the electorate who turned up at the polls. A loss of a further 17% of its electoral support will impact on the ruling party. Voters have given this government an extended opportunity to deliver to the people, to curb crime and to combat corruption. Unfortunately many of its leaders have shown themselves to be corrupt, arrogant, self, serving and incompetent.

That the government faces daily censure in the media is not the media's fault. For years the media gloried in the achievements of the ruling party but its failures are so many and so consistent that the media has to report the facts. That is the reality. Anything else would be a fabrication. The media is not above criticism but whatever its failures are they pale into insignificance in contrast to the failures of the government. Therefore, if anything, government should create a Political Appeals Tribunal to allow disgruntled communities, frustrated citizens and the unemployed to ask for action against government.

Freedom of expression is pivotal to our democracy. From its inception COPE has insisted on the need for our constitutional democracy to be protected to the hilt. Once again we see which way government is headed and once again we must express our passion for our freedom, once again we must do all in our power to keep sovereignty in our hands. People may have voted for the ruling party in the belief that freedom of expression was secure with it. It must not take the chance of continuing in that line of belief. Let us act in concert to stop those, like the ANCYL, who are already crowing that the Media Appeal Tribunal is a reality. It is not and we must not permit this.

Freedom of expression is our right. Let us protect that right for ourselves as well as for our children.

Statement issued by Phillip Dexter, MP, and Farouk Cassim, COPE Research Manager and retired MP, August 13 2010

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