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
Manto’s advert and the Health Act
This means section 14 forbids a newspaper from publishing anything about anyone’s treatment or stay in hospital — no matter how important that person may be or what that person may have done in hospital. I would argue that this section unjustifiably limits the right to freedom of expression because it is over-broad and, in effect, prohibits newspapers from uncovering corruption, maladministration or abuse of power if it relates to hospitals.The allegation that the health minister had abused her power to jump the queue for a liver transplant is a case in point. It is exactly the role of a free press to uncover the abuse of power by the custodians of our constitution.
If the minister had in fact abused her power in such a despicable way — which is something she denies — the public interest would overwhelmingly require newspapers to publish this relevant information to allow voters to decide for themselves what to think of the government of the day and whom to vote for in the next election.
Yet, if a newspaper published allegations of such abuse of power and relied on the medical records of the minister, it would be contravening section 14 of the National Health Act and would be committing a criminal offence. Section 14 can thus in effect be used by public figures to prevent the publication of embarrassing and damning details about corruption and abuse of power. This makes the section overly broad and, I would contend, unconstitutional.
