The dramatic adverts, which are about 2m2, show a handgun pointing at a lion, with an image of President Jacob Zuma looking on.
The posters, calling on Zuma to act to protect lions, were placed on 20 pillars at the international arrivals hall at the OR Tambo International Airport.
On Monday, Avaaz, a rights group, took the Airport Company SA (Acsa) and Primedia to the Johannesburg High Court to argue that their political right to free speech was violated when Acsa tore them down without adequate notice.
Avaaz alleges that in August last year, airport officials pulled down advertisements from the airport.
The adverts pleaded with Zuma to intervene in the lion bone trade to save South Africa’s lions.
The adverts had been on display for nine days when they were pulled down.
Primedia – which manages advertisements at airports for Acsa – had pre-approved the posters to run for one month.
But Acsa ordered that the advertisements be taken down immediately, after a journalist asked to photograph them.
Advocate Steven Budlender, counsel for Avaaz, said the posters were taken down in spite of the fact that they had not breached any laws and without a single complaint by a member of the public to Acsa or anyone else about the advertisements.
“The advertisement is protected under section 16 of the constitution and Acsa seeks to reduce the importance of the expression concerned by suggesting that it is commercial speech. That is incorrect,” he said.
Budlender said the advertisement was not an expression proposing a commercial transaction, but a form of political speech, which was protected under section 16.
He also argued that there had been a breach of administrative justice as Avaaz had the right to procedurally fair administrative action under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000.
The act requires a person affected be given a reasonable opportunity to make representations and Acsa’s decision to tear down Avaaz’s advertisement had, therefore, not been procedurally fair and was unlawful, he said.
The counsel argued that Primedia had breached the contract between the parties.
In Acsa’s defence, Kate Hofmeyer, argued that Acsa had a responsibility to the country and had to take down the posters as to prevent negative depictions of the country.
“The advertisements were not consistent with preserving a positive image of the country and the contents of the pictures were inappropriate, given that they (adverts) were placed at the international arrival’s hall,” Hofmeyer argued.
Hofmeyer said the area at which the advertisements had been placed was access-controlled and restricted, and as such, it was not a public forum.
Speaking outside the court, Emma Ruby-Sachs, Avaaz’s campaign director, said the government was acting as if it was exempt from the constitution.
“The right to call on government to act to protect people and our planet is at the very core of the free speech rights that all South Africans are promised,” Ruby-Sachs said. - Daily News Correspondent