ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has refused to accede to the EFF’s demands that he apologise for statements he made last Thursday during a media briefing on the countrywide June 30 anti-illegal immigration marches.
After the briefing, the EFF accused Mbalula of making false and defamatory statements by alleging that the party had supported unlawful anti-immigration protests.
The party’s lawyers pointed to remarks made by Mbalula during the briefing, where he allegedly said: “Lawlessness cannot be a norm and be tolerated, nor can violence. I’ve spoken about this, and another political party, EFF, was knocking on people’s doors, telling foreigners to go, outside the law.”
The party’s lawyers demanded that Mbalula publish a video statement apologising to the EFF and retracting the comments.
“The public statement is to be issued using a video format, containing a press statement in your name. To that end, the EFF will also distribute your public statement via its communications department to all the media houses whose contact details it possesses,” the lawyers said.
However, according to a letter from Mbalula’s lawyers which Sowetan has seen, he will not retract the statements he made, apologise, publish a corrective statement, or accept that his statements are defamatory. He rejects the red berets’ demands in their entirety.
According to Mbalula’s lawyers, he made the statements against the backdrop of publicly documented events, statements and political campaigns that have generated sustained debate.
The lawyers also claim that Mbalula’s remarks were made during a political media briefing dealing with matters of national concern, including lawlessness, immigration, public order and unlawful conduct.
“The issues he addressed in the media briefing have always occupied public discourse in South Africa and continue to generate robust political debate across the ideological spectrum. The remarks were plainly made within the context of the aforementioned political discussion concerning matters of undeniable public importance.
“They were not made during private discourse, nor were they intended to constitute a judicial pronouncement or definitive factual finding concerning the conduct of any individual. Your client has completely failed to engage with the context in which the remarks were made,” the lawyers said.
The lawyers also stated that issues relating to foreign nationals, employment practices and compliance with labour legislation have themselves featured prominently within the party’s public campaigns.
The EFF has publicly announced that it would conduct visits to restaurants to examine the employment ratio between South African citizens and foreign nationals of African descent and engage management of restaurants regarding those matters, said the lawyers.
The constitution, said Mbalula’s lawyers, protects freedom of political expression because democratic accountability depends on the ability of political actors to debate, criticise and challenge one another openly and vigorously and political speech is recognised as occupying a privileged position within the constitutional order.
“Your client’s interpretation and characterisation of our client’s remarks is divorced from the realities of political communication as political discourse is often characterised by rhetoric, hyperbole and strongly expressed opinion.
“We are instructed to record that your client’s indignation is difficult to reconcile with its own well-documented political conduct. Your client’s commander-in-chief has publicly accused the judicial officers concerned of acting out of racial prejudice.
“Likewise, your client has, on numerous occasions, publicly advocated for the occupation of privately-owned land in circumstances that have attracted judicial intervention and public controversy.
“These examples are not raised to invite debate on their merits, but to demonstrate that robust, provocative and often controversial political expression has consistently formed part of the democratic landscape within which all political parties, including your client, operate.
“In closing, we hold instructions that should your client persist with legal proceedings, we should vigorously oppose them as your client’s demands have materially overstated both the factual and legal position and have ignored the broader context in which the remarks were made and attributed to them an artificial meaning that an ordinary reasonable viewer and reader would not necessarily adopt.”
Sowetan
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