Case Law[2025] ZAGPJHC 742South Africa
Kunene and Another v Malema (A2023/092235) [2025] ZAGPJHC 742 (5 August 2025)
High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Johannesburg)
5 August 2025
Headnotes
Summary
Judgment
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# South Africa: South Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg
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## Kunene and Another v Malema (A2023/092235) [2025] ZAGPJHC 742 (5 August 2025)
Kunene and Another v Malema (A2023/092235) [2025] ZAGPJHC 742 (5 August 2025)
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FLYNOTES:
CONSTITUTION
– Equality –
Hate
speech –
Referring
to political leader as a cockroach – Carries genocidal
connotations – Internationally recognised as
hateful of
those to whom it is directed – Use of word would reasonably
have been understood as evincing a clear intent
to harm and
promote hatred – Provision aims to prevent dehumanization
and violence in public discourse – Repeated
use of cockroach
constituted hate speech – Appeal dismissed –
Promotion
of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
,
s 10.
IN
THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
(GAUTENG
DIVISION, JOHANNESBURG)
Case
no:
A2023-092235
In the matter between:
KENNY
KUNENE
First Appellant
THE
PATRIOTIC ALLIANCE
Second Appellant
and
JULIUS
SELLO MALEMA
Respondent
CORAM: WILSON J, MFENYANA
J and WENTZEL AJ
Summary
Section 10
of the
Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4
of 2000
– the nature of hate speech – whether hate speech
can be committed by addressing hateful words to a political opponent
– the purpose of
section 10
explained and discussed – the
genocidal connotations of the word “cockroach” –
the hateful nature of its
use in political debate.
##### JUDGMENT
JUDGMENT
WILSON
J (with whom MFENYANA J and WENTZEL AJ agree):
1
The central question in this appeal is whether one
political leader who calls another political leader a “cockroach”
in the course of a televised discussion of the outcome of a local
election commits an act of hate speech within the meaning of
section
10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair
Discrimination Act 4 of 2000 (“the Equality Act”).
We
conclude that he does. This is because that conduct falls squarely
within the textual definition of “hate speech”
outlined
in section 10 of the Equality Act, and because that text, read
purposively in its statutory setting, was in our view designed,
at
least in part, to prevent political speech in South Africa from
degenerating into an act of mutual dehumanisation. The consequences
of such dehumanisation are writ large across the pages of history.
They reveal themselves in the pogroms and genocides that the
use of
the word “cockroach” evokes. While South Africa is
presently some way from deteriorating into widespread factional
violence, the Constitution, 1996, and the Equality Act require us to
enforce the modest limits on political discourse that are
necessary
to prevent it from doing so.
The
speech
2
The first appellant, Mr. Kunene, is the Deputy
President of the second appellant, the Patriotic Alliance. The
Patriotic Alliance
is a political party represented in the National
Assembly. It is one of several parties which form the parliamentary
coalition
that presently controls the national executive. On 17
November 2021, Mr. Kunene appeared on television as part of a news
programme
to discuss the outcome of the 2021 local government
elections, which had taken place on 1 November of that year. Much of
the interview
was concerned with a deal the Patriotic Alliance had
struck with the African National Congress, which involved each party
supporting
the other’s candidates for senior offices in
municipal councils in which neither party could command a governing
majority.
3
Towards the end of Mr. Kunene’s appearance, his
interviewer, a Mr. Simelane, asked Mr. Kunene to comment on remarks
the respondent,
Mr. Malema, had made on social media the day before.
Mr. Malema is the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is
presently
an opposition party in the National Assembly. Though
occasionally prepared to enter into alliances with the African
National Congress,
the Economic Freedom Fighters was in 2021 and
remains today one of the African National Congress’ sharpest
critics. The Economic
Freedom Fighters competes for votes with both
the African National Congress and the Patriotic Alliance.
4
Mr. Malema’s remarks concerned the deal that had been
struck between the Patriotic Alliance and the African National
Congress.
He had criticised the African National Congress for
entering into an arrangement with a “pati yama bantiti”
(“a
party of criminals”). The word “bantiti”
was meant to refer to the well-known fact that both Mr. Kunene and
Gayton
McKenzie, who is the President of the Patriotic Alliance, have
in the past been convicted of criminal offences. The remark was quite
clearly not just a political critique of the African National
Congress, but also an attempt to needle Mr. Kunene and Mr. McKenzie.
5
Mr. Malema achieved his purpose. When his remark was
put to Mr. Kunene in the television interview of 17 November 2021,
Mr. Kunene
became angry. He accused Mr. Malema of “bitterness
and jealousy”. Mr. Kunene said that Mr. Malema had been
“calling
us these names for a very long time”, but that
the Patriotic Alliance had “tried to be mature and not respond”
to Mr. Malema. Mr. Kunene said that it was important to him to focus
on “putting together our governments with [the] African
National Congress”, which, he said, “is a very big agenda
for the country”.
6
Mr. Kunene went on to say that once he is “done”
with the coalition negotiations to which he had referred, he would
“deal with this little frog”. Mr. Kunene said that
“Julius is just an irritating cockroach that now I must deal
with publicly, and I will call you. I will call all the press, and I
will begin to deal with this and show you that Julius, whatever
he
criticises he is. Julius is a criminal, and I am going to show South
Africans the crimes that he is involved in, he has been
involved in,
and I am going to tell South Africans why I truly, the real truth why
I left the EFF, because of this cockroach”.
Mr. Kunene went on:
“so I am going to deal with this cockroach . . . we have stood
back, but now it is over”. He said
that he would “set up
our governments”, and then “deal with this cockroach”.
7
The repeated use of the word “cockroach” to
describe Mr. Malema was not lost on Mr. Simelane, who rounded the
interview
off by saying “I do imagine that there will be a fair
degree of controversy around your choice of words, particularly the
word cockroach. I do imagine that given its potent and loaded
history, you know it has previously raised a lot of conversation.
But
nevertheless thank you for coming through and having the conversation
with me here on ENCA”.
8
Mr. Kunene’s choice of words did excite
controversy. Mr. Malema objected to them, and complained to the
Equality Court that
they amounted to hate speech. The Equality Court
agreed. On 31 January 2023, Makume J declared that Mr. Kunene’s
use of the
words “cockroach”, “little frog”
and “criminal” to refer to Mr. Malema amounted to hate
speech
within the meaning of section 10 of the Equality Act. He
directed Mr. Kunene to apologise for using these words to describe
Mr.
Malema, interdicted Mr. Kunene from doing so in future, and
referred Mr. Kunene’s utterances to the Director of Public
Prosecutions
for further investigation.
The
appeal
9
Mr. Kunene and the Patriotic Alliance now appeal, with
Makume J’s leave, against Makume J’s decision. Their
arguments
before us are more or less what they were before the
Equality Court: that Mr. Kunene’s utterances do not fall within
the
ambit of section 10 of the Equality Act because they were
personal attacks on Mr. Malema, rather than on any group of which Mr.
Malema is a member; that to the extent that Mr. Kunene’s
attacks on Mr. Malema might reasonably be construed to be based
on
his membership of an opposing political party, political attacks of
that nature cannot amount to hate speech, since political
affiliation
is not a ground on which the Equality Act recognises that hate speech
can be addressed; and that a particularly wide
margin of appreciation
must be afforded to political actors who attack each other in pungent
or unpleasant terms. It was also suggested
that, since Mr. Kunene did
not actually threaten Mr. Malema with violence, or explicitly incite
violence against him, his words
could not reasonably be construed as
harmful.
10
To this was added the proposition that Makume J had set
far too low a standard in evaluating whether Mr. Kunene’s
utterances
amounted to hate speech. Makume J’s judgment
repeatedly describes Mr. Kunene’s utterances as
“inappropriate”,
and it was the serial use of this word
that Ms. Engelbrecht, who appeared together with Mr. Mathopo for Mr.
Kunene, emphasised
in her critique of Makume J’s decision.
11
However, I do not think that it would be fair, on
reading Makume J’s judgment as a whole, to impute to him the
view that Mr.
Kunene’s speech had to be enjoined merely because
it was “inappropriate”. Makume J was clearly alive to the
need
to evaluate Mr. Kunene’s utterances in context against
section 10 of the Equality Act. The question is really whether he was
right to conclude that Mr. Kunene’s use of the words “little
frog”, “cockroach” and “criminal”
during the 17 November 2021 interview amounted to hate speech under
section 10, properly interpreted in light of the Constitution.
12
It is to an evaluation of that nature that I now turn.
The
nature of hate speech
13
The Constitution entrenches the right to free
expression, but recognises two sorts of limits on it. The first is
that the right
to free expression does not extend to propaganda
for war, incitement of imminent violence, or “advocacy of
hatred that
is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that
constitutes incitement to cause harm” (section 16 (2) (c) of
the
Constitution). In other words, 16 (2) expression is
constitutionally unprotected: expression of the kind defined there
can be extinguished
at will, without raising any constitutional
issues at all.
14
The second is the sort of limitation that section 36 of
the Constitution permits on all constitutional rights: a limitation
authorised
by “a law of general application to the extent that
the limitation is reasonable and justifiable in an open and
democratic
society based on human dignity, equality and freedom”
(section 36 (1) of the Constitution). Section 10 of the Equality Act
is such a limitation. While it certainly outlaws much if not all of
the expression defined in section 16 (2) of the Constitution,
section
10 casts its net much wider. It applies to “words based on one
or more of the prohibited grounds, against any person,
that could
reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to be
harmful or to incite harm and to promote or propagate
hatred”.
15
The “prohibited grounds” are “race,
gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin,
colour,
sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience,
belief, culture, language, birth and HIV/AIDS status” (section
1 of the Equality Act), or any other ground where discrimination
based on that other ground causes or perpetuates systemic
disadvantage;
undermines human dignity; or adversely affects the
equal enjoyment of a person's rights and freedoms in a serious manner
that is
comparable to discrimination on a ground section 1
specifically enumerates.
16
The hate speech prohibition strikes at words which a
reasonable person would understand as clearly intended to harm or
incite harm
against, and to encourage hatred of, a person or any
group of persons merely because they bear a characteristic covered by
a prohibited
ground (see
Qwelane v South African Human Rights
Commission
2021 (6) SA 579
(CC) (“
Qwelane
”),
paragraphs 121 and 122). In prohibiting hate speech of this
type, the Equality Act sets modest outer limits for
social and
political interaction. It recognises that words, left unregulated,
can skew the terms of social and political participation
against
vulnerable groups, or against individuals, whether vulnerable or not,
who are nonetheless targeted for opprobrium merely
because of
personal characteristics that they are perfectly entitled to have and
which are constitutive of their dignity.
17
Words can do this not just by inciting physical harm
against individuals or members of a specific group, but also by
promoting the
hatred of those individuals and groups in a manner that
causes “deep emotional and psychological harm that severely
undermines
the dignity” of the targeted groups or individuals,
or which harms “social cohesion in South African society”
thereby “undermining our nation-building project” (see
Qwelane
, paragraph 154),
18
Outlawing words which harm “our nation-building
project” may seem at first blush to have an Orwellian ring. But
it bears
emphasis that critique of that project will never itself
constitute unlawful expression. When the Constitutional Court speaks
in
Qwelane
of harm to a nation-building project, it does not
address itself to vigorously expressed opposition to the
constitutional dispensation
we presently enjoy, even if that
opposition is accompanied with hostile or even violent imagery. It
seems to me that what
Qwelane
strikes at is harm to the
fundamental terms of social interaction: harm which denies others the
right to speak or be heard simply
because of their social status or
characteristics, or which encourages others to regard individuals
with specific social characteristics
as less than human; as unworthy
of having their voices heard.
19
The problem with this sort of expression is that it
degrades the social arena in which it takes place. It makes us all
less human,
less tolerant of each other, and more tolerant of hate.
It encourages us to accept dehumanisation as a normal part of
political
or social life, and it is a necessary precondition for the
infliction of widespread violence against the groups it targets. In
Qwelane
, the Constitutional Court made clear that the Equality
Act aims not merely to remedy the harm in hate speech after it
occurs, but
also “to ensure that it does not occur”
(
Qwelane
, paragraph 110). The outlawing of the kinds of
“societal harm” of which the court in
Qwelane
spoke (see paragraphs 109 and 121), is a critical part of the
Equality Act’s preventative purpose.
20
Understood in this way, the limits section 10 places on
free expression are quite modest. Section 10 strikes only at words
that
are reasonably apprehended as clearly intended to cause harm to
and encourage hatred against the individuals or groups defined by
reference to the prohibited grounds in section 1. The words used must
be objectively capable of causing appreciable harm to those
individuals or groups. Mere subjective hurt is not enough (
Qwelane
,
paragraph 144). The harm, though, may be direct, in the sense that it
causes or is capable of causing physical or psychological
injury to
the targeted groups or individuals, or indirect, in the sense that it
adjusts or is capable of adjusting the terms of
social interaction
against those groups or individuals.
The
words Mr. Kunene used against Mr. Malema
21
Mr. Kunene referred to Mr. Malema as a “cockroach”
four times in a televised interview about the outcome of an election.
Mr. Kunene and Mr. Malema were, and still are, leaders of competing
political parties. The trigger for Mr. Kunene’s attack
on Mr.
Malema was Mr. Malema’s critique of the African National
Congress’ decision to form municipal council coalitions
with
Mr. Kunene’s party.
22
Although Mr. Malema originally suggested that Mr.
Kunene’s attack on him was motivated by his ethnicity, I do not
think that
proposition can be sustained. There is nothing in the
context of Mr. Kunene’s remarks that could reasonably be taken
as an
attack on Mr. Malema’s ethnicity. Ms. Engelbrecht in fact
argued that the attack could only reasonably be understood as
entirely
personal. She emphasised that Mr. Kunene said that Mr.
Malema was the reason he left the Economic Freedom Fighters,
underscoring,
she submitted, the personal animosity between the two
men.
23
I do not think that proposition can be sustained
either. It is clear that Mr. Malema and Mr. Kunene do not like each
other. But
that would not have been the dominant impression left on
the reasonable observer of the 17 November 2021 interview. Mr. Kunene
referred to Mr. Malema as a “cockroach” in the context of
party-political debate. The reasonable observer would accordingly
have understood the epithet to have been directed at Mr. Malema
because he was a political competitor.
24
Ms. Engelbrecht could not really gainsay this, but
pointed to the decision of Equality Court in
Gordhan v Malema
2020 (1) SA 587
(GJ), at paragraph 18, in which it was observed that:
“[a] notable omission from the prohibited grounds is, not
unsurprisingly,
political ideology: neither capitalists nor
socialists can complain about their vilification as a class by
invoking this statute”.
The submission, as I understood it, was
that, because political ideology is not a ground listed in section 1
of the Equality Act,
hate speech cannot be committed in the context
of debate between different political factions, so long as the words
that flow between
political competitors are directed at the
antagonists’ ideologies, rather than the immutable
characteristics such as race,
ethnicity or gender.
25
I accept that political ideology is not a listed
ground, but I do not think it follows that hate speech cannot extend
to conflicts
between people of contrasting political ideologies. In
the first place both “conscience” and “belief”
are
grounds listed in section 1 of the Equality Act. Politics being
what they are, not all political affiliations will be matters of
conscience or of belief, but some clearly are. One need look no
further than the anti-communist pogroms of the mid-twentieth century
United States for an example of the persecution of individuals
because their consciences and beliefs coincided with their political
affiliation to the Communist Party USA. Moreover, political
affiliation, at least for some people, clearly qualifies as a ground
on which discrimination against them would undermine their human
dignity, or adversely affect the equal enjoyment of that person's
rights and freedoms in a serious manner that is comparable to
discrimination on a listed ground.
26
Accordingly, I reject the proposition that political
ideology or affiliation may not provide a basis for hate speech.
Indeed, it
seems to me that dangerous currents of violence and
dehumanisation will often flow along the lines of political ideology
or affiliation.
The question is whether a reasonable observer would
have understood Mr. Kunene’s remarks to be clearly intended to
cause
or incite harm and propagate hatred against Mr. Malema because
of Mr. Malema’s conscience, belief or political ideology or
affiliation.
27
I think this is exactly how the reasonable observer
would have understood Mr. Kunene’s utterances. Mr. Malema had
criticised
the African National Congress for entering into coalitions
with the Patriotic Alliance. He had done so by seizing on Mr.
Kunene’s
and Mr. McKenzie’s past to label the Patriotic
Alliance as a “party of criminals”. There is no
suggestion that
Mr. Malema did not honestly believe what he said. Nor
is it suggested that the critique was not advanced in good faith
against
a political competitor taking a step Mr. Malema genuinely
believed was inappropriate or damaging to the public interest. It is
likely that the critique was, for Mr. Malema, a matter of conscience,
or at least of genuine belief, and it was advanced in the
context of
airing a political opinion that Mr. Malema was entitled to have.
28
Mr. Kunene’s response was to call Mr. Malema a
cockroach. There can be no doubt what the use of that word would have
evoked
for the reasonable observer. Whatever Mr. Kunene intended, the
use of the word cockroach is internationally recognised as hateful
of
those to whom it is directed. It is also, if not itself an incitement
to do them harm, clearly indicative of an attempt to place
them
beyond the protection of ordinary human decency. The political use of
the term cockroach is always and everywhere a call to
treat those to
whom the term is directed as objects of hate. This is because, as
Makume J found, the Rwandan genocide is the dominant
context in which
the reasonable observer would have understood Mr. Kunene’s use
of the term. That genocide was characterised
by the use of the word
“cockroach” to dehumanise and mark-out for slaughter the
hundreds of thousands of men, women
and children who were hacked to
death in its commission.
29
Ms. Engelbrecht was alive to this, and urged us to find
that the word “cockroach” lacks the connotations in South
Africa
that it would have in Rwanda. I do not think this is
realistic. Part of what makes hateful words hateful is that they
break free
of their context and become vehicles for hate well beyond
the circumstances in which they were developed. “Cockroach”
is such a word.
30
In any event, the question is not the precise etymology
of a particular word or phrase, but how a reasonable observer would
have
understood its deployment. It seems to me that the use of the
word “cockroach” would reasonably have been understood
as
evincing a clear intent to harm and promoted hatred of Mr. Malema
because he was one of Mr. Kunene’s political foes, and
because
his belief and political conscience were not those of Mr. Kunene. The
use of the word conveys that Mr. Malema is not human,
but deserves to
be treated like a cockroach – to be eliminated from public
life, perhaps together with his followers. It
does not matter whether
this is what Mr. Kunene intended. It is plainly the meaning a
reasonable observer would have attributed
to Mr. Kunene’s
utterances. Mr. Simelane himself alluded to this in drawing Mr.
Kunene’s interview to a swift conclusion.
31
Ms. Engelbrecht further argued that the context of Mr.
Kunene’s utterances – fierce political debate to which a
margin
of appreciation must be afforded – saved them from being
considered hate speech. In my view, that context simply compounded
the harm Mr. Kunene’s words were likely to cause to Mr. Malema,
and to society at large. It seems to me that one fundamental
purpose
of section 10 is to place limits on the terms of social and political
debate, with the aim of ensuring that it cannot degenerate
into
mutual dehumanisation and violence. In other words, South African law
does not tolerate political attacks reasonably understood
to incite
harm and promote hatred against one’s political
opponents. The tendency of such attacks is to poison the
atmosphere
of political contestation, and move us closer to the resolution of
political disputes by violence rather than deliberation
and election.
32
I accept, of course, that courts should be slow to
police speech merely because it is “angry in tone or conveys
hostility”
(
Hotz v University of Cape Town
2017 (2) SA
485
(SCA), paragraph 68). For this reason, I do not think that
describing Mr. Malema as a “criminal” or as a “little
frog” (a quaint term, the provenance of which was not argued
before us) could count as hate speech. This is because a reasonable
observer would have understood them as no more than heated rhetoric.
It is the specifically genocidal connotations of the word
“cockroach”
which take it into a different category.
33
For all these reasons, we must, in my view, confirm the
core finding of the Equality Court: that the repeated use of the word
“cockroach”
to describe Mr. Malema amounted to hate
speech, within the meaning of section 10 of the Equality Act. This is
because a reasonable
observer would have understood the use of that
term in the context it was deployed as being clearly intended to
promote hatred
of and incite harm against Mr. Malema for no reason
other than that his political conscience and beliefs were not those
of Mr.
Kunene.
Relief
34
These conclusions mean that the appeal must be
dismissed. However, the order of the Equality Court cannot stand in
its current form.
In the first place, the order must be purged of the
declaration that the use of the words “criminal” and
“little
frog” were hateful. Nor can the referral of Mr.
Kunene’s utterances to the National Prosecuting Authority be
sustained.
Criminal sanction of unlawful expression is a measure of
last resort, which should be applied only in the most serious of
cases
(see
Qwelane
, paragraph 90). In the context of hate
speech, the primary aim should be to repair the social breach the
hate speaker caused.
35
In this case, it seems to me that Mr. Kunene should be
given the opportunity to bring himself back within the limits of
lawful expression,
and unequivocally to accept that there are some
things that he is simply not permitted to utter because they
undermine the political
system in which he is himself an important
participant. The interdictory relief and the order that Mr. Kunene
apologise the Equality
Court granted are both sufficient and
well-tailored to that end.
36
The parties were agreed that, unless Mr. Kunene’s
appeal is substantially successful, costs should follow the result.
The
importance and complexity of this matter justify the taxation of
counsel’s costs on the “C” scale. Since the
Patriotic Alliance made common cause with Mr. Kunene in defending the
Equality Court complaint, and in pursuing this appeal, it
will be
jointly and severally liable with Mr. Kunene for those costs.
The
rule 49 (6) (a) and condonation applications
37
Mr. Premhid, who appeared together with Ms. Zikalala
for Mr. Malema, took the preliminary point that the appeal had
lapsed. He asked
us to make a declaratory order to that effect. The
submission was that the appellants had not complied with rule 49 (6)
(a), and
that the appeal had lapsed as a result.
38
Rule 49 (6) (a) requires an appellant to apply “to
the registrar of the division where the appeal is to be heard for a
date
for the hearing of such appeal” within sixty days of
issuing their notice of appeal. If the appellant fails to do so, and
the respondent does not themselves set the appeal down, rule 49 (6)
(a) states that the appeal and any cross-appeal “shall
be
deemed to have lapsed”.
39
There is no dispute that the appellants in this case
did apply for a date within the sixty-day period prescribed in rule
49 (6)
(a). However, the practice directives of this court required
such an application to be accompanied by the appellants’ heads
of argument. The appellants’ heads of argument were not
submitted with the date application. They were filed at the direction
of this court just under a month before the hearing.
40
Mr. Premhid submitted that, because the application for
a hearing date was not accompanied by the appellants’ heads, it
was
not an “application” within the meaning of the rule
49 (6) (a). For that reason, Mr. Premhid submitted, the appeal
lapsed.
41
The point is a specious one, which should never have
been taken. In the first place, rule 49 itself envisages a different
regime
for the filing of heads than the practice directives of this
court. Rule 49 (15) permits the filing of an appellant’s heads
of argument “[n]ot later than fifteen days before the appeal is
heard”. Rule 49 cannot therefore sensibly be read to
provide
for the lapsing of an appeal merely because an appellant’s
heads do not accompany a date application. In addition,
as the
relevant practice directive makes clear, the failure to file heads
with a date application means no more than that the appeal
will not
be allocated a date until the heads are filed.
42
In this case, the appellants obtained a date without
filing their heads. This did not mean that their appeal lapsed. It
meant merely
that the registrar had made a mistake. The oversight was
cured by this court’s direction that heads be filed. The rule
49
(6) (a) application must fail. Costs will follow the result.
Though the application was easily dealt with, there is no wisdom in
awarding counsel’s costs on a lower scale than in the main
application. The rule 49 (6) (a) application simply added a layer
of
complexity to an already complex and important matter.
Order
43
Accordingly –
43.1
The application to declare that the appeal has lapsed is dismissed
with costs, including the costs of two counsel. Counsels’
costs
may be taxed on the “C” scale.
43.2
Save to the extent that the Equality Court’s order is varied
below, the appeal is dismissed with costs, including the costs
of two
counsel, to be paid by the first and second appellants jointly and
severally, the one paying the other to be absolved. Counsel’s
costs may be taxed on the “C” scale.
43.3
The Equality Court’s order is varied and replaced with the
following order –
“
1.
It is declared that the first respondent’s use of the word
“cockroach” to describe the complainant in the ENCA
television interview of 17 November 2021 amounted to hate speech in
contravention of
section 10
of the
Promotion of Equality and
Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
.
2.
The first respondent is interdicted and restrained from describing
the complainant as a “cockroach” in future.
3.
The first respondent is ordered to issue an unconditional written and
oral public apology for referring to the complainant as a
“cockroach”. The apology must unequivocally retract the
use of the word “cockroach” to describe the complainant.
4.
The first respondent’s written and oral apology must be
published within one month of the date of this order.
5.
The first and second respondents are directed, jointly and severally,
the one paying the other to be absolved, to pay the costs
of the
complaint, including the costs of two counsel.”
S
D J WILSON
Judge
of the High Court
This
judgment is handed down electronically by circulation to the parties
or their legal representatives by email, by uploading
it to the
electronic file of this matter on Caselines, and by publication of
the judgment to the South African Legal Information
Institute. The
date for hand-down is deemed to be 5 August 2025.
HEARD
ON:
23 July 2025
DECIDED
ON:
5 August 2025
For
the Appellants:
MJ Engelbrecht SC
T Mathopo
(Heads of argument drawn
by MJ Engelbrecht SC)
Instructed by E Botha and
Y Erasmus Inc
For
the Respondent:
K Premhid
M Zikalala
Instructed by Ian Levitt
Attorneys
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