Estelle Randall and Thami Ngidi
The Democratic Party is challenging the court judgment which it lost over the party's claim that the head of government communications, Joel Netshitenzhe, was an ANC spokesperson who detailed plans for a total ANC takeover of state institutions.
The Johannesburg High Court granted an order this week interdicting and restraining the DP from continuing to publicise a statement claiming: "Joel Netshitenzhe, a top ANC official, now says ANC plans include total control over the army, police, bureaucracy, intelligence services, judiciary, parastatals and the Reserve Bank."
The High Court also ordered the DP to pay costs of the application brought to court by the ANC and Netshitenzhe earlier this month, and also an urgent interdict in May.
The statement, quoted by the DP in advertisements during the run-up to this year's general election, comes from an article in the ANC's discussion journal Umrabulo, published in September last year.
The article is not attributed to an author but, according to an explanatory note, is based on an earlier discussion document, used at a summit of the ANC-SA Communist Party-Cosatu alliance in August 1997.
Netshitenzhe has denied making the statement which the DP attributed to him. "During the election campaign I was working for the government, not on the ANC's campaign," Netshitenzhe reiterated after the court ruling.
"There were a lot of high-profile ANC leaders involved in the campaign but the DP decided to select me for their venom. Even under normal conditions I don't make statements on behalf of the ANC. The DP is implying that I was violating the public-service conditions of service," Netshitenzhe said.
He added that the statement attributed to him had been taken out of context.
The Umrabulo article from which the DP extracted the statement suggests that a democratic system of government has not yet destroyed the apartheid state.
According to the article: "Transformation of the state entails, first and foremost, extending the power of the national liberation movement over all levers of power: the army, the police, the bureaucracy, intelligence structures, the judiciary, parastatals and agencies such as regulatory bodies, the public broadcaster, the central bank and so on.
"Control by democratic forces means these institutions should operate on the basis of the precepts of the constitution; they should be guided by new doctrines; they should reflect in their composition the demographics of the country; and they should owe allegiance to the new order," the article said.
DP leader Tony Leon has argued that the document forms the basic policy of the ANC's deployment committee, which Deputy President Jacob Zuma heads.
Peter Horwitz, of the firm Horwitz Mendelsohn Incorporated, which is acting for the DP, said: "We also have a whole host of additional information and documents. There's no question he (Netshitenzhe) speaks for the ANC. We'll give notice of our motion to rescind the judgment by Monday. There's no way we're going to let the judgment stand."
If the DP's motion to have the judgment rescinded is unsuccessful, the party can expect to be ordered to pay costs early next year.