“We have no absolute right to be protected from being subject to defamatory claims,” the representative judge says.
The South African Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has secured a court order that was excluded from the previous “nausea order.”
Solar panel company Artsolar can now investigate allegations from whistleblowers that it imports products from China and does not make them locally.
Read the judgment
IDC has given Artsolar R900,000 R90,000 to establish a “proud South Africa” manufacturing plant in New Germany.
In a recent emergency application, Artsolar has hampered three “Whistleblowers” and won the “Gagging Order.” Businessman and former Artholar client Brett Latimer and two former employees, Kandace Singh and Shelendra Hansraj, have filed “claims of honor and loss,” invalidated or misconducted the business, and did not manufacture Solar Panels.
In the same interim order, acting Judge Perlen Brandiu published journalist Bongani Hans, who sent questions written on the basis of the allegations to the art.
The IDC’s concern was that the orders against Latimer, Singh and Hansraj specifically banned them from filing “defamous” claims against IDC when they were already busy investigating their claims.
IDC said there was a serious interest in determining the truthfulness of complaints against the company, and that the interim order is hampering its ability to investigate them.
Therefore, it will initiate its own emergency application, join the lawsuit and obtain an order as it relates to the IDC.
The issue, which Artsolar opposed, was discussed before Durban High Court Judge Paul Wallis, who ruled Friday morning to grant the relief the IDC is seeking and ordered Artsolar to pay the costs of his application.
The IDC had argued that if they were not allowed to speak to Latimer and two former employees, there was a possibility of serious harm, considering that IDC had lent R90 million to the company.
This delays the investigation of complaints ordered by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Competition.
The IDC said he should have joined the lawsuit first.
Judge Wallis agreed.
Judge Wallis said Artsolar had lost sight of the fact that IDC was not merely another lending agency with private legal contractual rights. It was established by law to boost economic growth.
He said that Artsolar correctly claimed that a loan agreement between IT and IDC had concluded, but that Artsolar did not expressly identify any impact on local production of solar panels, but IDC directly argued that the main purpose was to allow Artsolar to install the latest technology for local production of solar panels.
On the issue of reconsideration of the orders associated with IDC, Artsolar had argued that IDC had no right to receive defamation information.
Judge Wallis said the submission was “smart in its simplicity, but in my view it cannot be adopted without qualifications.”
One qualification was that, as well as circumstances unique to the press, there were situations that could have been justified through various forms of qualifying privilege, or that the statement was true and that the statement could be argued that it was true for the public interest.
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“We have no absolute right to be protected from the subject of a claim of honor and loss.”
Given the nature of the allegations against Arthalal, part of the current “nausea order,” and the context of the IDC and loan’s purpose and purpose, it seems to me, at least that natural disclosure is true and can be defended in the public interest or as a form of qualified trait.
As is currently framed, the order excluded such disclosure to the IDC, and such ban was not justified, he said.
The Amabhungane Center for Investigative Journalism and The Freedom of Expression Legal Network is considering participating in the lawsuit as Amicus curiae due to the impact of pre-publication orders on journalists on media freedom.
