On Tuesday, 8 April 2008, the SAHRC announced its findings on the matter. The forum has been urged by the commission to amend provisions of its constitution which relates to membership. In response to that the FBJ, through its chairperson Abby Makoe, said the forum has been ambushed.
“This is a judicial ambush. We are confident that any reasonable person who witnessed the sham ‘trial' last month will be astounded at the temerity – that a step, like a banning order, could even be considered, let alone issued, after the briefest of hearings that evidently has proven to be an inquisition after the fact.
“The FBJ is loath to describe the HRC process that unfolded before the nation's media last month as an inquiry, which is what the commissioner Jodi Kollapen now claims it was. Was that a hearing? Is this the type of action South Africa's so-called liberal media expects of its human rights commissioner? If so, then we are undeniably in deep, deep trouble.”
According to Makoe, the FBJ was mislead into believing that the public forum, organised by the commission last month, was only going to be a discussion forum – not a trial. “FBJ believes it was deliberately lulled into a sense of false expectation by Kollapen's repeated, personal assurances that the March fiasco would be nothing more than a discussion forum. The FBJ approached it in that way and prepared its statement accordingly.”
“The SAHRC is not beyond reproach. We want to query the human rights commission' line of thinking and will be taking this matter to the highest court in the country,” says Makoe.
In response to that, the SAHRC issued a statement rejecting and disproving claims made by the FBJ that it had been ambushed.
Says commission's spokesperson Vincent Moaga, “Makoe conveniently omitted to share with the public that on 4 March the commission wrote to him to request a substantive response to the complaint against his organisation and that such a response should have reached it by no later than Tuesday, 18 March as the panel discussion was not intended to be a substitute for the commission's normal complaint handling procedures.”
When there was no response, the commission wrote a letter to the FBJ on 17 March, to which he also did not reply. “Clearly, it stands to reason that Makoe and his organisation were indeed given sufficient opportunity to respond to the complaint against them,” says Moaga.
The SAHRC maintains that the FBJ should amend the provisions of its constitution which relates to membership, thereby opening membership to all races, subject to the provision that any person who chooses to become a member of the FBJ should subscribe to their principles and be committed to the advancement and empowerment of black journalists.
“The FBJ can continue in its activities but should do so within the parameters of the Equality Act, which provides that the exclusion of particular people solely on the basis of race is prohibited,” adds Moaga.
