EDITORIAL: Hands off Karyn Maughan

It is the height of absurdity to think a seasoned journalist faces prosecution for summarising a document already in the public record, yet here we are.          

Karyn Maughan and prosecutor Billy Downer this week sought to quash criminal charges brought by former president Jacob Zuma. Zuma is an accused in the very trial Downer is prosecuting and which Maughan has reported on for two decades. 

Zuma accuses Maughan of “leaking” a doctor’s letter that was variously annexed to papers his own attorneys filed in court, discussed openly, and was the subject of severe scrutiny by judge Piet Koen, who described it as “vague”.

Zuma’s lawyers, Koen noted, failed to claim any confidentiality when they filed this letter as part of his papers and did not redact any sections either.

It is this “vague” letter that Maughan summarised in her reporting. Yet for this, Zuma claims she is a criminal offender because an advocate — who has, notably, not being charged — provided it to her. Zuma claims this is a violation of the NPA Act as it is a “leak”.

Our courts take press freedom very seriously. The Constitutional Court wrote “one also cannot neglect the vital role of a healthy press in the functioning of a democratic society. One might even consider the press to be a public sentinel.” If there is an encroachment “upon press freedom, [this would] deal a comparable blow to the public’s right to a healthy, unimpeded media”. Aside from Maughan’s freedom, it is our freedom at stake too. 

Ideally, the full bench of the Pietermaritzburg high court will find no offence here. If this were to continue, we would all be subjected to a protracted, absurdist play written ostensibly in the language of law but for an audience of one whom, it seems, does not believe in it anyway.