Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2007-01-14 Reporter: Nashira Davids

I’ll Fight the Judgment, says Roberts

 

Publication 

Sunday Times

Date

2007-01-14

Reporter

 Nashira Davids

Web Link

www.sundaytimes.co.za

 

Relentless: Ronald Suresh Roberts outside the Cape Town High Court in November with his counsel, Derek Mitchell SC. Picture: Michael Walker 

"‘The triumph of the Sunday Times in this matter is sweet victory, not only for the newspapers, but for all the media in our country"

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Ronald Suresh Roberts lost the defamation case he brought against the Sunday Times this week.

But he has vowed to fight back.

The author is in New York, from where he wrote to the Sunday Times on Friday, after Cape High Court Acting Judge Leslie Weinkove dismissed his application in a 38-page judgment.

Media organisations, however, have labelled the judgment a victory for freedom of speech and freedom of the press over the rights of prominent individuals who have repeatedly succeeded in gagging the media over unflattering reports.

The battle between Roberts and the newspaper centred on a 2004 article, “The Unlikeable Mr Roberts” , which is reprinted in the Sunday Times this week, on page 21.

The article’s author, freelance journalist Chris Barron, delved into the writer’s past as an attorney working for one of the country’s top firms, which had asked him to leave because he had “been making private business arrangements that created a conflict of interest for Deneys Reitz”.

And he reported on a bitter row between Roberts and the SABC over a television talk show that upset him so much that he “relentlessly” pursued the broadcaster .

In court it was revealed that he even roped the President into the saga ­ and threatened the SABC with the National Intelligence Agency and the Scorpions.

Roberts labelled the article “a character assassination” and denied the truth of its contents.

But Judge Weinkove didn’t agree.

He said that while the Deneys Reitz statement was defamatory, it was also substantially true and in the public interest, and publication was reasonable.

He said of the SABC paragraph that it was “probably inaccurate” with regard to why Roberts had pursued the SABC so relentlessly, but was not defamatory in any event.

“After the advent of the new Constitution and the fact that it protects not only an individual’s right to his reputation and good name, but at the same time protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, a balance has to be struck between these competing rights,” said Judge Weinkove.

He slammed Roberts for his “harsh venomous” attacks on Nadine Gordimer, William Gumede and Judge Raymond Leon.

In his comments on the judgment this week, Roberts said: “The decision of the acting judge is fascinating, particularly in its references to Tony Leon’s father, who sentenced the teenaged Umkhonto weSizwe combatant, Andrew Zondo, to death five times over; to William Gumede, the defrocked plagiarist who unsuccessfully attacked the personal character of President Thabo Mbeki; and to Nadine Gordimer, who unsuccessfully sought to suppress my highly regarded biography of her.

“There will very obviously be an appeal when I’m back from New York next week.”

But this hasn’t deterred academics and media institutions from celebrating.

Na’eem Jeenah from the Freedom of Expression Institute said prominent South Africans should heed the judgment.

“We are concerned that, in the recent past, politicians, business people and other prominent individuals ­ such as Roberts ­ have seen the courts as an easy resort in their attempts at gagging newspapers from publishing stories they don’t view favourably.

“This has taken the form of interdicts served on publications in order to prevent publication, and the threat of, and actual defamation suits against, newspapers.

“For many newspapers, just the threat of such legal action is sufficient to cause them to censor themselves because they do not have the resources for lengthy court battles,” he said.

Rhodes University School of Journalism lecturer Robert Brand said media organisations were breathing a “sigh of relief” over the judgment .

“The media has been on the receiving end of a number of judgments that seem to afford more weight to the right to privacy than the right to freedom of expression,” Brand said.

“This judgment says that if you are a public figure and you seek the limelight, you cannot just turn it off when it becomes inconvenient. We should weigh up the right to privacy against freedom of expression in each situation.”

Deputy chairman of the South African National Editors’ Forum, Thabo Leshilo, said the judgment should be celebrated by everyone in the industry.

“The triumph of the Sunday Times in this matter is sweet victory, not only for the newspapers, but for all the media in our country, which find themselves under increasing pressure to defend their right to publish even unflattering information about the rich, the powerful and the famous,” said Leshilo.

But attorney Mark Rosin said the “straightforward” judgment would not make any real impact on the law of defamation.

“There were no new points of law established and, while the judge took an interesting view on certain elements of the law, the case seemed largely determined on the evidence and the facts. On those elements, the judge was clear and very, very direct,” he said.

Judge Weinkove also ordered Roberts to pay the costs incurred by the Sunday Times. In addition to his own costs he will have to fork out a portion of the Sunday Times’s expenses.

With acknowledgement to Nashira Davids and Sunday Times.