Johannesburg – ANC Women's League deputy secretary-general and Eastern Cape Transport, Safety and Liaison MEC Weziwe Tikana-Gxotiwe is back at the high court in Makhanda where she is demanding R250 000 from an anti-corruption activist for defamation.
Tikana-Gxotiwe will square off against whistle-blower Lungile Mxube who called her home a “Gupta compound” on Facebook at the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) on Thursday.
In one of the posts, Mxube said Tikana-Gxotiwe fired a former employee of the department who shared a boyfriend with the MEC.
Tikana-Gxotiwe has told the court that the Facebook posts imply that she is corrupt, incompetent, lacking in integrity, involved in criminal enterprises, taking part in criminal activity and a liar.
But Mxube, who is represented by the Wits University-based Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), wants Tikana-Gxotiwe’s application dismissed with costs.
Cals has likened the lawsuit to strategic litigation against public participation, otherwise known as a ‘SLAPP’ suit, which is without merit and used around the world by the powerful in an attempt to intimidate and silence their critics.
”Notably, other than saying that these statements are false and defamatory, the MEC says nothing about why these statements that have been made of her in the public domain are false. Admittedly, she does not bear the onus to prove the falsity. The respondent (Mxube) has the onus of proving the truth and public benefit,” Mxube’s legal team’s heads of argument stated.
Mxube said it was difficult to raise defences when Tikana-Gxotiwe had not raised specific comments in her affidavits that specified how each was defamatory.
Instead, Mxube continued, she simply said all of them were defamatory and implied that she was “corrupt, incompetent, lacking in integrity, involved in criminal enterprises, taking part in criminal activity and/or a liar”.
He said Tikana-Gxotiwe was a politician and that the defence of fair comment applied to him.
”When one deals with politicians or political matters, courts have allowed for a good deal of latitude for comment,” Mxube said.
According to Mxube, Tikana-Gxotiwe must be prepared for criticism and should not be treated like any other member of society but should expect robust, even exaggerated comments to be made about her.
In June, Tikana-Gxotiwe lost another R250 000 defamation lawsuit, this time against UDM leader Bantu Holomisa, who had tweeted that the Mioca Lodge in Cala, Eastern Cape, owned by her 26-year-old daughter, Kwakhanya Tikana, would be the quarantine site for 18 suspected Covid-19 patients.
Political Bureau