Working with Justice Langa on press freedom

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Author: Anshal Bodasing
• Published date: 15 August 2019
• Pages: 24-29
• Date: 15 August 2019

Working with Justice Langa on press

freedom

ANSHAL BODASING*

The Press Freedom Commission (PFC) was off‌icially formed in July 2011

and completed its work on 25 April 2012, when its Chairperson, former

Chief Justice Pius Langa, released its f‌indings. I was very privileged, over

this short period, to serve on the PFC under the leadership of Judge Langa

and alongside some very highly respected members of civil society,

namely: Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, Santie Botha, Futhi Mtoba, Dr

Phil Mtimkulu, Kobus van Rooyen SC, Derick Elbrecht and Professor

Kwame Karikari. This tribute is my own recollection of the Commis-

sion’s work and of the experience of working alongside Justice Langa as

well as his impact on our efforts over the nine-month period.

Press freedom is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of the South African

Constitution,

1

and a free, independent press has always been a vanguard

of thriving democracies. The overarching task of the PFC was to

investigate the eff‌icacy of the existing regulatory system for print media in

South Africa and then to make recommendations for a ‘gold standard’

regulatory system for print media. Wehad a very specif‌ic mandate to fulf‌il

within a space of nine months, and we all worked part-time on Commis-

sion work, taking time off from our ‘day jobs’to meet for about two days a

month, sometimes more. The great challenge, however, lay not in the

magnitude of the task, but in the external pressures that had to be very

carefully managed. The prevailing climate was one of outright and

perceived hostility towards the media in general from the African

National Congress (ANC), certain quarters of the government and

certain other sectors of society. The ANC had resolved at its previous

national conferences that it would look into the possibility of legislative

intervention where the print media was concerned because, amongst

other things, the print media was seen as being biased and unchecked

because it was effectively self-regulated. A debate ensued in the public

domain about whether the ANC was on the brink of imposing unfair and

possibly unconstitutional restrictions on the press. The Press Council of

South Africa (PCSA) embarked on its own review in order to rectify any

shortcomings in its operations, its procedures and the Press Code,

amongst other things. However, at the end of that process, Print Media

* BA LLB LLM (KwaZulu-Natal).

1

Constitution of the Republic of SouthAfrica, s 16.

24

2015 Acta Juridica 24

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