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SANEF protests at journalist forced to testify

17 Nov 2006

The SA National Editors' Forum (SANEF) is protesting at the manner in which a Cape Town journalist is being pressured by a litigant and a High Court judge to give evidence related to his professional duties in a defamation action. According to a recent press statement, SANEF has stated on many occasions that the constitutional principles upholding the freedom of the media are placed in jeopardy when journalists are subpoenaed by the police or other litigants to give evidence when that evidence is readily available elsewhere.

This argument has been accepted by the Ministry of Justice, which in 1998 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SANEF to call on journalists for testimony only as a last resort in criminal matters.

The journalist is Cape Town's Daily Voice news editor Gasant Abarder, who reported on a protest meeting attended by more than 100 people. Associated Trade Union of South Africa representative Grant Twigg is alleged by chicken processing plant owner County Fair to have made defamatory statements at that meeting about the company's conduct related to the death of an employee, Virgenia Dallas, who died as a result of an asthma attack.

SANEF is "deeply disturbed" that the court has rejected Abarder's claim that the reasons he has advanced for refusing to testify constitute a just excuse for not doing so and supports the journalist in his refusal to testify on the grounds that it will compromise him as a journalist and jeopardise his relationship of trust with his sources of information.

SANEF also notes that the testimony required of him can be easily obtained from others not inhibited by professional obligations.