The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) filed a complaint with the BCCSA Registrar in regard to a film (The Bang Bang Club) broadcast by the SABC on 14 April 2012. The IFP argued that the SABC was under an obligation in terms of the Broadcasting Code to have granted it the opportunity on air to reject the introductory statement of the film: “Between 1990 and 1994, the ruling apartheid government waged a secret war against Nelson Mandela’s ANC party and its supporters. In this covert war the government found a powerful ally in Inkatha’s movement and its thousands of Zulu warriors.’’
The BCCSA Tribunal did not uphold the complaint and reasoned as follows: The present film includes a written statement at the beginning of the film which implicates the IFP as an ally of the National Party, as stated above. It is true that the SABC has a duty to grant a right of reply where a person is seriously criticised on a matter of public importance. The context in which the IFP is implicated is that of a docu-drama film. The reasonable viewer of the film would know that the statement may be one-sided, that the IFP would have a different view, and that producers have the freedom to air their opinions. Even if one accepts that the SABC might have a duty to grant the IFP a right to reply, the right to have a dramatic work published in its original form – in this case a serious, well-acted and well-produced work – weighs more heavily in the present case than the right to reply. The IFP may voice its dissatisfaction with a view, and it may do so all over the country, including in Parliament and in the Communications Portfolio Committee. In this manner a view may, in the words of Justice Holmes of the Supreme Court of the United States, be tested in the marketplace of ideas. A marketplace that is free and open, and where the truth is likely to ultimately prevail, wins the day, according to Justice Holmes.