The Registrar of the Commission received a complaint from a listener concerning a broadcast in 
which a complaint of his against a hospital in Durban was dealt with by a presenter who broadcast his complaint and also that of the hospital. His complaint was that he should have been granted an opportunity to have taken part in the programme.
Held: Firstly, the clause permits the Respondent to have broadcast the complaint. The Respondent has the editorial freedom to broadcast this complaint when and where it chooses to do so. The choice of programme may not accord with the view of the Complainant or of the Tribunal, but unless the listeners (e.g. in a programme directed at small children) were likely to have been harmed or disturbed by the content of the insert, the Code does not interfere with that choice. Secondly, the question arose as to whether the comment was “made on facts truly stated or fairly indicated and referred to” in terms of clause 35 of the Broadcasting Code. The only facts in possession of the presenter were the facts stated by the Complainant in his note to the presenter. The complaint was not that the presenter misrepresented the note which she received from the Complainant, but that the Complainant should have been included in the programme so as to be able to refute the version provided by the spokesperson for the hospital. Clause 35 of the Code is aimed at providing both sides of a controversy of public importance. The Tribunal had no doubt that the matter is one of public importance, hospital services being one of the priorities within this democratic state. However, the aim of clause 35 is not necessarily to resolve the dispute; that would be a matter, if need be, for the courts to address. The Tribunal, accordingly, came to the conclusion that within the confines of clause 35, both sides of the matter were presented and that it was not necessary in terms of the Broadcasting Code to have afforded the Complainant the right of reply. The complaint was not upheld.