Durban - An urgent Durban High Court application launched by Snowy Smith against Independent Newspapers, some of its journalists, the SA Jewish Board of Deputies, its lawyers and all of its members, seeking a gagging order in reporting about his “hate speech case”, was struck off the roll by Judge Dhaya Pillay on Thursday.
The judge ordered that Smith pay the legal costs of the respondents.
Smith’s complaint against the newspapers related to reporting on a case brought against him in the Equality Court by the board of deputies, in which it was alleged that he was disseminating by e-mail “extraordinary offensive” racist, anti-Jewish propaganda.
In his response, Smith claimed what he sent out was “true” and obtained from “Jewish sources” on the internet.
In her judgment handed down this week, magistrate Aletta Moolman ordered that Smith apologise to the Jewish community within 10 days, ruling that the e-mails “impinge on the dignity of the Jewish people and constitute hate speech”. She said Smith had referred to Jewish people as “the enemy, dictators, murderers, war criminals, terrorists, torturers, rapists, thieves, dictators and dishonest people”.
An individual’s freedom of expression could not prevail against hate speech, she said.
In his application, Smith wanted an interdict against the respondents stopping them from calling him anti-Semitic, a “nut case”, “crazy man” and a “crank”. He claims he is neither anti-Semitic nor a Holocaust denialist.
On Thursday, advocate Jacqui Julyan SC, for the respondents, said the application was not urgent. She also referred to the fact that he had launched it one day before the Equality Court ruling. Smith said he was being “defamed” and had issued “a final legal warning” before launching the application. Judge Pillay said the matter was “obviously a non-starter”.
As he left court, Smith told a reporter: “I will serve you again.”
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The Mercury