Sunday Independent interdicted, SANEF expresses shock

1 Nov 2010

The South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) has come out in full support of the Sunday Independent "in its courageous reportage that serves the public interest by exposing malfeasance and corruption in the public service", and is fully behind the newspaper's appeal to a higher court against Judge Ephraim Makgoba's ruling on Friday night, 29 October 2010, which favoured the police.

Sunday Independent interdicted, SANEF expresses shock

The application was brought by the minister of police, the national commissioner of the SAPS and the divisional commissioner of crime intelligence to stop the newspaper from continuing to report on nepotism in the appointment of personnel to positions in the crime intelligence division of the police.

The North Gauteng High Court judge granted the order against the newspaper in the absence of its editor and lawyers who were not in court at the time, caught in traffic.

According to SANEF, a disconcerting aspect of the proceedings is that there appears to have been an element of miscommunication between the lawyers representing the parties, which resulted in the paper's lawyers having to travel to Pretoria after the police lawyers had arrived at court. The paper's lawyers arrived five minutes after the judge had made his ruling.

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