Waring v Mervis and Others

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Hiemstra J
• Judgment Date: 08 May 1969
• Citation: 1969 (4) SA 542 (W)
• Court: Witwatersrand Local Division

F Hiemstra, J.:

The plaintiff, Mrs. Joyce Waring, sues the defendants for alleged defamation. The defendants are Mr. Joel Mervis (editor of the Sunday Times, a weekly newspaper published in Johannesburg), SA Associated Newspapers Ltd. (proprietor and printer of the Sunday Times), and the Allied Publishing Company Ltd. (publisher of the paper).

G The subject-matter of the action is a sub-leader written by the first defendant and published in the Sunday Times on 18th June, 1967. This article was a response to an article written by the plaintiff, Mrs. Waring, and published in the Cape Times on 13th September, 1966, a week after the death of the late Prime Minister, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd. He was stabbed where he was sitting in his bench in Parliament, and naturally the atmosphere in the country was one of profound grief and deep H indignation at this foul murder of a great statesman and beloved leader. The State funeral had taken place in Pretoria on Saturday, 10th September. Filled with emotion at what had happened in the past week, and by the impending election of a new leader on the morrow, Mrs. Waring, on the afternoon of Monday, 12th September, wrote an article for the Cape Times, which was published the following morning under the heading 'Verwoerd: Blame put on English Press, Clergy, Opposition.' This heading reflects the contents. In forceful language Mrs. Waring gave

Hiemstra J

expression to her feelings and laid the blame for the national tragedy at the door of those who in her opinion had contributed to it. This article brought in its train an enquiry by a parliamentary select committee. After the committee had reported, Mr. Mervis commented on the A whole episode in his leader column. The intervention of the select committee accounts for the long space of time between the appearance of Mrs. Waring's article and the comment by the Sunday Times.

It is necessary to reproduce Mrs. Waring's article in full:

'Verwoerd: Blame put on English Press, Clergy, Opposition.

This is addressed to certain members of the Press, the clergy and the parliamentary opposition.

B Those people will know exactly whom I mean.

Now that the Hosannahs are over, the dark grave filled in, and the mourners - the genuine mourners - have retired to the privacy of their homes with their grief, perhaps that Press, those clergy and those opposition members will stop and take a good long look at themselves.

I wonder if they can possibly like what they see?

Or has the rot set in so deeply that even they cannot smell the decay?

C Accusation.

Because I, Joyce Waring, alone and by myself, representing no racial section but only those people who knew that Dr. Verwoerd was a great man, a simple man, a man of ideals and great patience, a family man - I, Joyce Waring, accuse you people of creating the atmosphere and building up the situation which could lead and did lead to this dastardly murder.

When Dr. Verwoerd's life was attempted at Milner Park Showground six years ago, it was argued then that the articles against Dr. Verwoerd at D that time in a certain Rand newspaper had inflamed the man Pratt and spurred him on to the deed.

The murder in the 'sacred' precincts of Parliament last Tuesday was no less a result of Press vituperation, misleading speeches by certain opposition members and attacks by some members of the clergy.

Anarchy

E I am aware that no one person whom I accuse will admit that he or she knowingly said, wrote or did anything to incite any individual to murder.

Of course not! We are not anarchists in South Africa. We do not encourage political murder, not knowingly! But it was anarchy that happened on Tuesday!

And it was murder resulting from a concentrated campaign of hatred led by sections of Press, clergy and political opposition against the political character and ideals of Dr. Verwoerd.

And now with great praise and much lament the country has buried Dr. Verwoerd.

F And those very people who were in the forefront to condemn him, have been waving palms and chanting psalms over his grave and wailing, 'A great man has died'.

The praise had been wide-spread and fulsome.

Why, then, did they not recognise a great man when we had him alive and do all in their power to support him?

I would be the last to say one must not criticise:

just and free G criticism is everyone's right. But slanders and vindictive criticism and slanted reporting are not everyone's right.

Those Pressmen who, abusing South Africa's freedom of the Press, abusing the very thing their English forebear Fairburn won for them in Grahamstown, who have been paid for their slanders by newspapers and magazines beyond this country's borders, who have helped to form and spread a hostile atmosphere to South Africa in the world, hostile, too, to Dr. Verwoerd, are they now proud of their shameful efforts?

H God forgive me if I say so, but they are a stink in my nostrils. The Pharisees of the Old Testament had nothing on them.

As I drive through Groote Schuur and see the shuttered windows, the silent gardens, the closed door - the door which always stood open, rain or shine while the bright chandeliers burned in the bright entrance hall, I feel bitter that such a man and such a woman as his wife was and his widow is, should be lost to South Africa, who needs such people so badly.

Mrs. Verwoerd must have suffered dark moments as his wife when people called her husband bitter and vicious names, and when certain sections of the Press could see nothing but 'a man of granite, a political shyster, a dictator of a police state'.

Hiemstra J

We were nothing in the hierarchy of Dr. Verwoerd's followers but we too believed and admired, otherwise we would never have taken the drastic political step we did.

We suffered too, ourselves and our family, but our suffering was as nothing compared to that of the Verwoerds and the Afrikaners who A believed that their leader was sincere, who believed (as he believed) that what he preached and practised was in the best interests of this country.

'Marked Men'

And now South Africa stands on the very threshold of a new era. Today we choose our new Prime Minister.

Be it Schoeman, Vorster or Dönges, to mention a few names, are these to be 'marked men', targets of hate and fear from the beginning of office, chiefly because they are Nationalists and Afrikaners and they believe B sincerely in a policy of racial separation, a policy South Africa has always followed and that is traditional? Will the new Prime Minister too be shot down, figuratively, if not literally?

I say to those people who, under the cloak of freedom of speech, believe that they can attack our Prime Minister personally and politically in order to belittle him in the eyes of the world and his opponents in South Africa, stop! stop! before you drag your...