5FM is one of the radio stations of the SABC, the public broadcaster in terms of the Broadcasting Act 
1999. It broadcasts a weekday Drive Show that starts at 15:00. Gareth Cliff, who has built up quite a following, and is known for his jokes, sketches and, at times, sharp social criticism, recently surprised his own CEO, the Respondent, as well as many listeners, when he broadcast an interview with “Jesus”. The background was the recently released Mel Gibson film, The passion of the Christ. Complaints were received from listeners and other members of the public.
It was held
(1) that the interview amounted to satire which satirized the commoditization of religion and not religion itself;
(2) that the interview did not purport to be with the real Jesus Christ but with a hypothetical Jesus who had acted in the film;
(3) that the interview did not amount to hate speech;
(4) that the interview, which was likely to have offended a substantial number of Christian listeners, should not have been broadcast as part of an afternoon Drive Show which reached a varied and wide audience, which would not have had the opportunity to analyse the interview in depth and who were likely to have been offended by the mere fact that the interview was said to have been with Jesus;
(5) that the broadcast contravened the Broadcasting Code, as developed in terms of section 39(2) of the Constitution, by having included the
“interview”in the Drive Show;
(6) that such an interview might have been included in a programme with a sophisticated audience after the broadcasting watershed, but that was a question for the SABC to be decided upon and which might not suit its internal policy; and
(7) that since the SABC was unaware that the presenter planned to
broadcast the “interview” and had since suspended him for a few days, and because the presenter had apologized on air, the contravention was noted and no sanction was imposed. It was also noted that the SABC regarded the interview as being in conflict with its internal policy.