Court wrong to put media in the dock

One of the world’s best known news publications, The Washington Post, announced in 2017 that it would for the first time in its 140 years of existence have a tagline: Democracy dies in darkness.

Journalism is imperfect, yet it shines the light necessary to keep democracy’s ideals alive. Like democracy , it remains the best vehicle to enable full participation and for people to make informed decisions about affairs of their societies.

The Constitution guarantees media work. This is the only vocation named by name as worthy of constitutional protection. The constitution writers may not have the creative streak of The Washington Post marketers, but they certainly had the same idea.

Any attempts of making journalistic work unnecessarily difficult, like the unprecedented and bizarre move by Boksburg court magistrate Colbert Ramafufi to call Sowetan reporter Noxolo Sibiya to the stand to explain why she needs pictures of the accused and to allow for a defence attorney and the state to question her, should be condemned.

Media workers ask for permission to take pictures of the accused inside the courtroom all the time. Presiding officers are authorised to deny permission for certain individuals’ pictures to be taken if they believe it not to be in the interest of justice.

This cannot be the argument in this case. Sibiya had asked the court to grant permission to take and publish pictures of Mzwandile Mike Mphahlele whose wife’s naked body was found in the bathtub of their home in November 2017.

She took the stand without prior warning and legal representation. This should be condemned. It is unfathomable that a magistrate should unduly put a journalist through what he put Sibiya through, just to make a bread and butter decision in the line of his work.

It is extremely concerning that a magistrate with such vast powers to determine fates and futures of individuals every day would allow what at face value looks like an abuse of court and process.

Journalism is a public service and a practical contribution to the understanding that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

A society that appreciates its freedoms should condemn any act against media freedom, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem. If it does not, it may easily find itself with democracy having died in the darkness of ignorance and unaccountability.