Mandla’s lawyers in bid to bar media from court
MANDLA Mandela’s legal team yesterday used a Constitutional Court ruling on another case to stop the media from publishing facts on his divorce case with estranged first wife Thando Mabunu-Mandela.
Former president Nelson Mandela’s eldest grandson and his ex were in the Mthatha High Court again yesterday.
The pair are embroiled in a divorce, with Mabunu-Mandela demanding half their joint estate.
But even before proceedings could start, Mandla’s legal team raised the issue of a Constitutional Court ruling on a case involving Johncom vs Others wherein they claimed in a high-profile divorce case that the media could not report on the case if a child was involved.
They claimed although Mandla and his estranged wife did not have a child together, the former was now a father to a six-month-old baby and it would not be in the best interest of the child to have the facts of the case published.
Mandla has a son with his fourth wife, Nosekeni Rabia Mandela.
Billy Gundelfinger, one of Mandla’s lawyers, said the media would have to make a formal application to the court to show if it was in the public’s interest to publish the facts surrounding the case.
Judge Fatima Dawood then asked the media if it would make a formal application, to which reporters in court said not at that moment.
But after asking for a short adjournment, Gundelfinger, however, told the media that “even making a formal application would still be a waste of time as we would still object to it because there is a child involved”.