Appeal against ANC song postponed

Published Sep 3, 2012

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Free State - The application by the ANC to appeal against a court judgment which found that the lyrics “dubula ibhunu” (shoot the boer) was an incitement to murder was postponed on Monday.

“Having heard the legal representatives from both parties, the application is postponed,” Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Kenneth Mthiyane said.

The case was indefinitely postponed.

The African National Congress was ordered to pay the costs of the postponement.

The case relates to an order by Acting Judge Leon Halgryn on a settlement order between two members of the Society for the Protection of the Constitution.

One of the members, Mahomed Vawda, wanted to use the words at an anti-crime march in Mpumalanga 2010.

Another member, farmer Willem Harmse, objected, contending that the words meant “shoot the white man” or “shoot the boer” and that they would cause him injury.

The case was originally a low-key application between the two men, about which the ANC was not aware.

Eventually, Harmse and Vawda settled and Halgryn granted their settlement order Ä that the utterance or publication of the words “dubula ibhuna” was unconstitutional and unlawful, and that translated, the words meant “shoot the boer/white man”.

Also, that the publication and chanting of the words prima facie satisfied the crime of incitement.

The judgment is separate to an Equality Court hate speech case brought by AfriForum against expelled ANC Youth League president Julius Malema after he sang the words several times last year.

The ANC's lawyer Gilbert Marcus SC said the party asked for the postponement because the Malema case was coming up in the SCA next month.

Mthiyane said the high court judgment was binding only on Vawda.

Speaking outside court, Vawda's lawyer Zehir Omar said that because of this, he could not understand the ANC's interest in the case. - Sapa

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