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The
International Press Institute (IPI), said today that it is
disappointed at the decision of the Bloemfontein High Court to
disregard the right of journalists to keep their sources
confidential.
IPI claims that on November 11, Judge President JP Malherbe upheld
the ruling of Judge Joos Hefer that Ranjeni Munusamy must testify
before the Hefer Commission in Bloemfontein.
IPI says it views the qualified right of journalists to keep their
sources confidential to be an essential part of an ‘open and
democratic society’ and that in examining this argument the
court could have given greater weight to international and foreign
law, and believes the court could have been persuaded by the
decision of an appeals panel of the United Nations War Crimes
Tribunal in the Hague, which overturned a decision compelling
Washington Post journalist Jonathan Randal to testify before the
tribunal.
Based this interpretation of international and foreign law, IPI
believes it would have been possible for the South African High
Court to construct a suitable legal framework that provided a
qualified right of confidentiality.
The institute says that the denial of this right will seriously
impede the work of South African journalists who in the future will
be forced, at every stage of the interview process, to seek legal
advice on what conversations they can and cannot be a party to,
with the overall effect will be an extreme deterrence on
individuals coming forward to provide information that is in the
public interest.
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