SACP statement on Constitutional Court decision on the right of the DA to circulate offensive lies

20 January 2015

With respect to the dignity of a body which forms an important part of the democratic dispensation, which we fearlessly fought for against a recalcitrant racist apartheid regime. The South African Communist Party registers in the strongest possible terms its disagreement with the majority decision of the Constitutional Court, over the offensive and untrue SMS sent by the racist DA to its supporters.

The Constitutional Court lost an opportunity to educate the South African population about a number of Constitutional principles. These principles include but not limited to the following:

• That all rights have limitations, this is equally enshrined in our bill of rights.
• Human dignity is at the core of human rights, for which we dedicated our entire struggle for the dignity of the racially oppressed African people and all South Africans. Freedom of expression is human right too, which equally must be subjected to a limitation. Therefore, freedom of expression must be tempered with the concept of human dignity at all the time.

The majority court decision reinforces the idea that any opinion may be publicly expressed regardless of the truth or its intended harm, in which case goes against the grain of our constitution. It now prepares the ground for a culture of insults to be the norm in our body politic. We reiterate that the judges are wrong in this regard.

Issued by the SACP

Consult Solly Mapaila
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