Mixed reaction to ruling in Terre'blanche trial

3 Dec 2010

While both the South African National Editors' Forum (SANEF) and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) have welcomed the ruling by Judge Joseph Raulinga of the North Gauteng High Court to allow a limited number of journalists to witness the proceedings in the Eugene Terre'blanche murder trial in Ventersdorp, the MMA disagrees with the inclusion of family members and the public.

The ruling is to allow 14 journalists, four relatives of the deceased and 16 members of the public to hear the minor accused's testimony via closed circuit television, in a separate room, at the hearing in May 2011.

MMA director, William Bird said, "While we welcome the decision on the media, MMA is astonished by the order allowing access to four members of the family and sixteen members of the public, especially when the court received no application seeking family or public access. We are seriously concerned that facilitating public and family access will make it impossible to ensure that the identity of the child is adequately protected."

Child Justice Act

The trial constitutes a 'child justice court' under the terms of the new Child Justice Act that came into place in April 2010. Under normal circumstances the law is quite clear that only those deemed necessary for the trial may be permitted access to the court and this would exclude the media, members of the public, and members of a victim's family from attending.

In this particular case, MMA accepts that there is an exceptional public interest in reporting on this trial and therefore that media should be permitted, though limited in order to protect the rights of the child. This was its position in its application as friend of the court on this issue of media access.

However no direction appears to have been given on who will be responsible for providing and managing the closed circuit camera link and this is an important outstanding issue.

The MMA feels that family and public access appears to have undermined efforts to strike a balance between the public interest in reporting this trial and protecting the rights of the child.