Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
SABC and the ANC – dangerous moves
News reports suggest that the ANC in Parliament wants to amend the Broadcasting Act to give Parliament the power to hire and fire the SABC Board.
This is a dangerous and astonishingly stupid idea because it would make the SABC Board directly beholden to the majority party in Parliament. If the National Assembly can fire the SABC board they will be tempted top put pressure on the board to toe the party line or be fired. This will scupper any last vestige of independence at His Masters Voice.
Can one trust any majority partuy in parliament not to abuse such power? The answer is, of course, that one cannot. Besides section 192 of the Constitution states that national legislation must establish an independent authority to regulate broadcasting in the public interest, and to ensure fairness and a diversity of views broadly representing South African society.
This suggests that broadcasting must occur in the public interest and that the SABC should not be beholden to the majority party whims in Parliament.
What is required is not more political control of the SABC but LESS political control. The reason why there is such a mess at the SABC is exactly because Mbeki forced the National Assembly to appoint a Board it had not selected. This was probably illegal but now it is a bit late to do anything about it.
Much better would be to amend the Broadcasting Act to ensure that the appointment of the SABC Board is de-politicised. But the chances of this happening is about as slim as the chances of Robert Mugabe having tea with Morgan Tsvangirai.
Ai politicians. What did we do to deserve them?
