High Court refers Daily News to Information Minister

Harare – High Court judge Anne-Marie Gowora said: “In my view, it is clear that the applicant has not made out a case for the court to assume the discretion to deem that the applicant is duly registered or is deemed to be so registered.”

The Daily News and its sister paper, The Daily News on Sunday , were closed down by the government in 2003 after failing to register in accordance with new media laws.

The judge hit out at the Information Minister for failing to expeditiously deal with the case following a Supreme Court finding that the Media and Information Commission (MIC) could not deal with the case as it was biased.

“It therefore behooved him, bearing in mind the time limitations set in the Act, which Act he administers, to put in place measures for the speedy determination of the application for the registration by the applicant which obviously was not going away. This he failed to do,” the judge said of the minister.

She noted that the minister had in court papers indicated that he could not appoint an independent commission as this required an amendment of the law, but nothing was being done in that direction.

“The Minister indicated that he is having consultations with his legal practitioners over how to resolve the issue. By now his consultations should have borne fruit but still the court is none the wiser as to what course of action he intends to take to ensure that the application is dealt with,” Gowora said.

“He does not even suggest that the amendment, which he believes is the best course possible, has been put into effect and that the legislature has been requested to pass such amendments.”

The permanent secretary in the ministry of information, George Charamba, last week told the State media that there was nothing wrong with the Access to Information and protection of Privacy Act (Aippa), under which The Daily News and The Daily News were banned for failing to register with the MIC.

ANZ lying

The judge said assertions by the ANZ that there was no-one to deal with the case following the Supreme Court’s barring of the MIC from the case was not true.

“To contend as Mr Matinenga does that there is in fact no administrative body in existence is to go too far… in terms of this Act, an Administrative authority includes a Minister of Deputy Minister of State. It is therefore not correct that there is no administrative authority in existence to deal with the application. Consequently there is no reason why relief provided for in terms of section 4 of the Act cannot be availed to the applicant,” the judge said.

Publishers of The Daily News which was shut down by Zimbabwean authorities three years ago had asked the High Court to grant them the right to publish until the long-running dispute was resolved.

The MIC has twice refused to grant it a licence despite a Supreme Court ruling in March last year which threw out the ban on the newspaper.

Lawyers for the government argued that the High Court had no jurisdiction to grant a licence, saying the Information Ministry should be allowed time to mediate.

Once the country's best-selling daily, The Daily News has been reduced to a handful of former managers and journalists occupying a small office in central Harare.

In its heyday, the paper had a circulation of 150 000 and offered an alternative voice to the state media.

Article by courtesy New Zimbabwe