5
HH 359-20
HC 2534/20
followed.” See also Ashwander v Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 US 288 (1936); Iain Currie
and J. de Waal (2005) The Bill of Rights Handbook 5th ed p. 25; J. A. Barron and C. T. Dienes,
Constitutional Law in a Nutshell 7th ed. p. 27. The dispute in casu can be dealt with in the
context of the provisions of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [Chapter
10:27] and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (Registration, Accreditation and
Levy) Regulations, 2002, which are contained in Statutory Instrument 169C of 2002.
It is common ground that the additional accreditation categories which are the subject of
challenge in this application are not provided for by law. Section 79 of the Act only refers to two
categories. These are local journalists (employed by mass media service or news agency, and
part-time or freelance journalists), and foreign journalists. This fact is acknowledged by the
respondent in its statement ZMC04/2020, annexure “E” to the founding affidavit, para 2 thereof.
The respondent’s only excuse for including the impugned categories is that the Act is deficient in
dealing with the new challenges presented by rapid growth of the digital media and that when the
Act was enacted it did not anticipate these changes. Clearly, therefore, the respondent’s action is
not only ultra vires the Act but also illegal insofar as it is attempting to amend the law through a
mere press statement. The respondent being a creature of the Constitution and the Act must
found all its acts within the framework of the law. If the law is deficient as is suggested by the
respondent, the option is not to usurp the function of the legislature but to approach parliament
with recommendations on how to plug the lacunae in the law.
There has been an allegation that the different accreditation cards can be abused to
discriminate against some media practitioners. There seems to be an inadvertent concession that
this may be so, implicit in the statement by the respondent that the move is meant to prevent
‘some malignant elements bent on abusing the current system of accreditation, by trespassing
into events that clearly do not fit their professed lines of journalism”. This statement lends
credence to the concerns raised by the applicant that the additional categories and the different
accreditation cards are an exclusionary tactic.
I am mindful that at this stage where a provisional order is sought I need only prima facie
evidence to prove the allegations. In my view there is sufficient evidence to ground a reasonable
apprehension of harm. The applicant’s entitlement to the protection or a right clearly or only
prima facie established are not in dispute. The applicant and its members are the instruments by
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