Afriforum drags MEC to court over unfinished business
Lobby group Afriforum has once again drawn its daggers against Gauteng ANC provincial chairperson and education MEC Panyaza Lesufi.
The civil rights organisation has applied for a court order at the Joburg high court to force Lesufi to comply with their out of court settlement requiring Lesufi to apologise for his “defamatory utterances”.
This comes after he allegedly insinuated in a statement on November 24, 2019, that Afriforum, which has been on his case, had attempted to assassinate him and was stalking his children.
Afriforum claimed that Lesufi had agreed to apologise and retract the remarks in a joint media statement they issued but breached their settlement agreement by contradicting it, saying he “never agreed to apologise to racists”.
In the court papers, which we have seen, Afriforum CEO Carl Kriel said the organisation instituted action against Lesufi for defamation on June 22, 2020.
He said it wanted him to convene a media conference, apologise and publish the apology for his “defamatory remarks”.
Kriel said Lesufi had initially given them notice of intention to defend and filed his plea on September 25, 2020. He said it later referred the matter to mediation and reached a settlement agreement on July 28, 2021. They signed the agreement, he said, on October 12 2021 and Lesufi on September 21, 2021.
Kriel said they had an intention to have the settlement agreement made an order of the court, but Lesufi indicated through his legal team that it was not necessary because it would incur additional costs.
They also agreed, he said, that in case one of them breached the agreement, the aggrieved party could still approach the court for appropriate relief.
Kriel said the settlement agreement included a joint media statement, which was jointly issued by Lesufi and Afriforum on October 23 that year.
The statement reads in parts: “The member of the executive committee, Mr Panyaza Lesufi (MEC) regrets that he made utterances on 24 November 2019 that gave the impression that all Afriforum had attempted to assassinate him and had been stalking his children. In consequences, the MEC retracts those utterances. The MEC states that he is under regular attack from various sources and that his utterances should be viewed against such background.
The MEC accepts that his utterances regarding Afriforum have caused a rift between the parties.
“However, the parties hereby commit to constructive engagement in an attempt to prevent a repeat of such situation and to address any issue which may arise in the future. The parties have their differences, however, they have met in the past and have debated issues and are committed to doing so in the future.”
Afriforum said after the joint statement was published, Lesufi issued a statement and
said he would not back down to racists. This was in a response to a social media post, which called him a liar.
“Me back down to racists? Never, I will never apologise to racists. Read the full statement. They assured me that they are not going to harm me and my family and I took their word. So, where’s the lie?”
Afriforum said it had instructed it lawyers to write a letter to Lesufi asking him to remedy his breach of the agreement but he failed to do so.
Lesufi said although he has not received the summons, he will oppose the application.