Johannesburg - President Jacob Zuma has dropped R60 million in legal claims against the media.
His attorney, Yusuf Dockrat, gave notice of Zuma’s intention on Friday. Included in Zuma’s claims were R16m in defamation and dignity against Independent Newspapers, which publishes the Saturday Star.
The claims also included three cases of defamation against cartoonist Zapiro – two totalling R10m which were published in The Star and another for R5m for a cartoon published in the Sunday Times.
Many of the claims date back seven years. The largest claim was R7m against 94.7 Highveld Stereo DJ Darren Simpson, for a parody song entitled, My Name is Zuma, which was played multiple times on the station.
A R5m claim was made for an article by William Mervyn Gumede in the Sunday Independent, the Saturday Star’s sister paper, in which Gumede commented on Zuma’s rape trial, saying that African culture was being invoked to justify rape or to silence rape victims.
A R1m claim for dignity was made against The Star for an article about the ANC National Working Committee’s decision to forbid Zuma from engaging in political activity until the conclusion of his rape trial.
The claims against Zapiro were made for a cartoon in The Star depicting Zuma as having his fingers crossed when taking the stand to testify in his rape trial, another in The Star in which Zapiro probed Zuma’s alleged moral degeneration in a “handbook” and a cartoon in The Sunday Times depicting him preparing to rape Lady Justice, who is being pinned down by Julius Malema, Gwede Mantashe and Zwelinzima Vavi.
Others were against The Citizen, Sunday World, Rapport and the Sunday Sun.
On Friday the Presidency said in a statement in consultation with his legal team, that President Zuma has elected to withdraw his claims against the various entities “and in so doing bring these matters to a close, mindful as he is that much of the litigation commenced before the President assumed office”.
The statement said the consideration was informed by the broader agenda of reconciliation and nation building which the President leads in Government. Equally, it added, the president was committed to redressing prejudice and inequality through government-led programmes and forging better working relationships with like-minded interest groups committed to this end.
“The president feels that measured as against the broader nation interest and challenges which the country is faced with, his personal sentiments, however aggrieved he may feel, must give way,” the statement said. Shapiro said he was not at all surprised that Zuma’s was dropping all the claims.
He said he didn’t see any mileage Zuma has managed to make of them.
“I really haven’t seen the media in general caving in to this form of intimidation from a powerful politician. I think it is intimidation and it has not worked. I was really very unconcerned. “I thought it was wildly unlikely he would ever pursue them as it would have unearthed a lot of stuff he would not want to have in the public domain. I don’t believe the spin around nation-building and I don’t know how anyone would buy that argument.
On behalf on Simpson, Primedia Broadcasting welcomed President Zuma’ decision to withdraw his legal claims against the media.
“We were not concerned. We were always confident that the claim would not succeed. It came as little surprise. After he dropped a claim last year, we were expecting this.”
Media lawyer at Webber Wenzel, Dario Milo, said it was a welcome move by the president, though long over-due. “The sheer frequency and quantum of the defamation actions, most of which involved critical commentary of Mr Zuma, presented a major problem for freedom of expression. One hopes that through this action, the president is indicating that he respects the right of the media to comment on his actions.”
Saturday Star