Judgment is expected to be handed down next week in an application by the ANC for leave to appeal an order that the lyric “shoot the boer” was incitement to crime, AfriForum said on Friday.
Judge Leon Halgryn was expected to hand down his ruling on Monday after judgment was reserved in the High Court in Johannesburg in November last year.
In March Mpumalanga farmer Willem Harmse successfully applied for an order that the words ANC Youth League president Julius Malema sang be banned. He and a businessman in the area, Mohammed Vawda, belong to a group called The Society for the Protection of our Constitution and they had planned a protest march against crime and farm murders.
Vawda wanted to put the words on a poster because he interpreted them to mean “shoot apartheid”. Harmse and Vawda argued about this, which led to Harmse taking it to the High Court in Johannesburg.
Halgryn, in the March application, declared the song illegal and unconstitutional.
The ANC applied for leave to appeal, feeling that Halgryn did not take into consideration the historic context of the song and that his order was too broad. It would, for example, ban academic discussion of the song, or prevent a group of anti-apartheid veterans from singing the song at a private gathering.
AfriForum's legal representative, Willie Spies, in a statement said it was important to distinguish between the case being heard on Monday and the hate speech case brought by his organisation against Malema for singing the struggle song containing the words “shoot the Boer”.
“It is further also important to note that Monday's ruling is no indication of the merits of the controversial order, but only whether the ANC on the one hand, and AfriForum on the other will be allowed to become parties to the case and lastly, whether leave to appeal will be granted to the ANC,” he said.
“The ruling will nevertheless be followed with great interest.”
The hate speech case continues on May 19. -
Sapa