MICHELLE PIETERSEN AND BALDWIN NDABA
A NC YOUTH League President Julius Malema’s political life has reached a threshold as the Johannesburg High Court was expected to rule today on his public singing of the controversial Struggle song Dubul’ ibhunu(Shoot the boer).
Judge Colin Lamont’s judgment was due to come today while Malema is engaged in another uphill battle to stop the ANC from terminating his membership and presidency of its youth league.
The ANC has charged Malema with three counts of misconduct. He is likely to plead not guilty on all counts on Wednesday or later in the week.
Malema made several failed attempts to stop the ANC prosecuting him.
Judge Lamont was expected either to ban Malema from ever singing the controversial song, or to agree with the besieged youth leader that the song symbolised the hardships experienced during apartheid.
Civil rights union AfriForum laid the hate speech charges against Malema.
Yesterday, AfriForum threatened to approach the Supreme Court of Appeal or the Constitutional Court if Judge Lamont ruled against it.
Earlier, acting High Court Judge Leon Halgryn had ruled that the singing of the song was incitement to murder.
A victory for Malema will mean he enters the ANC’s annals as a defender of its Struggle history.
The watershed judgment comes just as the ANC and its youth league face off in an unprecedented showdown.
Meanwhile, another nail was knocked into Malema’s political coffin yesterday, with the mother body’s disciplinary committee ruling that his objection to the release of information regarding the hearings did not prejudice him.
The ANCYL had accused the ANC of being in violation of its own constitution. It also expressed concern that the ANC’s decision publicly to communicate its findings to the media undermined its own constitution.
But the disciplinary committee chairman, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Derek Hanekom, dismissed his application yesterday.
In his ruling, Hanekom said that at no point had the ANC or the disciplinary committee released details of the charges. The media had become privy to them.
The statement came as the new venue for the hearing against Malema and his co-accused was placed under siege.
There was a heavy police presence, including Joburg metro police, in Kibler Park, southern Joburg, where the hearing was moved to prevent a repeat of the chaos Malema supporters caused during his first appearance on August 30 at Luthuli House.
The police and metro cops, including Gauteng traffic police, blockaded all routes leading into the suburb yesterday. Police specialised units, such as the flying squad, the highway patrol, the mounted police and the dog unit, were also keeping watch.
Residents said the law enforcement agencies had arrived on Thursday in preparation for Malema’s appearance yesterday at the Klipriviersberg Recreation Centre.
Yesterday, these officers searched every minibus making its way into the area.
Only a handful of Malema supporters, including some of the ANCYL national executive committee members, turned up at the venue.
Earlier, police threatened to arrest journalists and impound their cars for allegedly refusing to stay far away from the centre.
While it was expected that the ANCYL’s top five officials, who were collectively charged with allegedly storming a meeting of the ANC’s top six, would face the disciplinary committee yesterday, it did not. Instead, arguments on the individual charge of misconduct against Sindiso Magaqa and ANCYL head of communication Floyd Shivambu, who was charged separately for sowing divisions within the party, were heard.
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