Parliament, Cape Town - Parliament on Tuesday welcomed a ruling by the High Court in Cape Town dismissing an urgent application by South African media houses to compel the national legislature to stop interrupting broadcast feeds.
The court ruled that the applicants in the case, Primedia Broadcasting, Media 24, the SA National Editors Forum, the Right to Know Campaign and the Open Democracy Advice Centre did not show “irreparable harm” if the case was not heard on an urgent basis.
“The applicants…had been able, and would continue to be able, to report on proceedings in Parliament through traditional reporting methods, even during those relatively brief periods [if they recurred] in which, because of ‘grave disturbance’, the visual feed did not display the disruption,” Parliament said in a statement.
The court ruled that it would hear arguments from the applicants against the constitutionality of Parliament’s Policy on Filming and Broadcasting on April 20.
The media houses and NGOs argue the constitution guaranteed public access to Parliament and the legislature’s broadcast policy violated this right.
Parliament would defend the policy which gave it leeway to cut away during instances of “grave disturbance” during legislature sittings.
The application came after the February 12 State-of-the-Nation address which saw MPs from the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) forcefully ejected from the National Assembly for disrupting President Jacob Zuma’s speech.
While police and members of Parliament’s security staff dragged EFF MPs out of the House, the live feeds into which free-to-air television stations and pay channels plug, showed cameras trained on presiding officers and not on the violent images playing out in the National Assembly.
ANA