Zimbabwe's Supreme Court lifts Daily News ban

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court lifts Daily News ban

FORMER Daily News lawyer Gugulethu Moyo holding a special edition of The Daily News

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S Supreme Court on Monday quashed a decision by the state media commission denying the independent Daily News newspaper a licence to publish.

"The determination of the media commission denying the applicant the license to operate as a mass media organisation is set aside," Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled.

The Daily News and its sister paper, the Daily News on Sunday, were forcibly closed in September 2003 under Zimbabwe's stringent media laws which require all news organisations to obtain a licence from the commission.

The judgement was timed at exactly 15 days beforer Zimbabweans vote in a general election. Government critics immediately dismissed it as a stunt for foreign observers who have started arriving in Zimbabwe.

Daily News chairman Sam Sipepa Nkomo told New Zimbabwe.com: "What this judgement means is that the matter has been remitted back to the Media and Information Commission, and as you know, they can take their time. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act says they can have up to 60 days to consider."

He said he was seeking a one-to-one meeting with MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso. "If he says we have to reapply, we will do that because we need the paper back on the streets as soon as possible," Nkomo said.

Former Daily News lawyer Gugulethu Moyo who was part of the legal team that drafted the Supreme Court challenge described the judgement as "a small victory for press freedom".

"The whole point of making that constitutional challenge on the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act was to have it set aside, but the Supreme Court has upheld it," said Moyo who now works for the International Bar Association in London.

"As long as there are mad men using a bad law to regulate newspapers, journalists and media organisations are not safe. The MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso still retains immense power and can do what he wants with The Daily News or any other paper for that matter.

"The day that freedom of expression was most endangered in Zimbabwe was the day that Robert Mugabe succeeded in his efforts to create an executive-minded judiciary. As wicked as Mugabe’s media laws are, they are not self-executing, they require judges that are complicit with the Government in stripping the people of their basic human rights."
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