Still red light for Daily News

A Zimbabwean court has rejected an application for registration by one
of the country's biggest newspapers, The Daily News, and sent the paper
back to the government which has previously refused the paper
permission to operate, writes Torby Muturikwa.

Harare High Court judge Anne-Marie Gowora referred the newspaper's case back to the Minister of Information, who has failed to deal with the case despite court orders.
 
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 the country's media law – the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA).
 
Both The Daily News and Daily News On Sunday were published by the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) who have had a four-year battle with the government to have its titles licenced.
 
In dismissing the ANZ case to have its papers duly declared registered with the Media and Information Commission, Gowora said assertions by the ANZ that there was no-one to deal with the case following the Supreme Court’s barring of the Media and Information Commission from the case was not true.
 
“In terms of this Act, an administrative authority includes a minister or 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.
 
The ANZ  had asked the High Court to grant them the right to publish until the long-running dispute was resolved.
 
Justice Gowora also took a swipe at the Information Minister for failing to deal with the long-running saga after both the High Court and the Supreme Court had found the MIC chairperson Tafataona Mahoso to be biased against the ANZ.
 
“It therefore behoved 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 MIC has twice refused to grant the ANZ  a licence despite High Court and  Supreme Court rulings which referred the matter to the MIC when the ANZ sought to register with the government-appointed commission.