DA will go to court on ICASA delays

The Democratic Alliance will today submit an urgent High Court application to compel ICASA to hear the DA's complaint against the SABC without any further delay, and to give us a decision on the matter immediately. 

ICASA has not fulfilled its regulatory and constitutional obligations with regards to the handling of our complaint. The unavoidable impression we are left with is that ICASA is trying to deliberately delay dealing with this complaint so that the DA's election adverts are kept off the air for longer. This is clearly prejudicial to the DA's election efforts, and only serves to advantage the ANC. 

The DA submitted a complaint to ICASA regarding the decision by the SABC to censor the DA's television and radio adverts. The reasons supplied for the decision were obviously spurious, and are a transparent attempt by the SABC to shield the ANC and President Jacob Zuma from scrutiny and criticism for his failure to create jobs over the last five years, and for his failure to take responsibility for the Nkandla scandal. The SABC was quite obviously trying to shut down the kind of robust political competition that is normal in a democracy. 

We could not let their censorship stand and so we submitted our complaint to ICASA on Saturday afternoon. See our heads of argument here.

In terms of Regulation 6(6) of the Regulations on Party Election Broadcasts, Political Advertisements, the Equitable Treatment of Political Parties by Broadcasting Licensees and Related Matters, ICASA is required to give us a decision on this complaint within 48 hours. 

ICASA did not meet this regulatory deadline. They wrote to the DA on Monday to request that we make oral submissions on Tuesday morning at 09h30. We immediately pointed out to ICASA that this was outside of the stipulated 48 hours, but that we would accede to their request. 

This correspondence can be read here

Then, later yesterday afternoon, ICASA wrote to us again saying that they could not organise a quorum of members of the Complaints and Compliance Committee, which is responsible for hearing our complaint, for tomorrow morning. Nor could they arrange a quorum for Wednesday morning 16 April. They informed us that the hearing would therefore only take place at 09h30 on Thursday 17 April. 

We replied that we would very reluctantly accede to this further delay, but only on condition that ICASA could offer us a commitment that they would reach decision by close of business on Thursday afternoon. This would allow our adverts to be back on the air for the long weekend if ICASA found in our favour.

This correspondence can be read here.

Late last night ICASA replied to us to say that they could not provide this commitment. 

This is completely unacceptable to the DA. We will today approach the Gauteng South High Court seeking an urgent order to compel ICASA to hear the matter, and to reach a decision on the matter, without any further delay. 

Statement issued by DA leader, Helen Zille, April 15 2014

UPDATE: ICASA buckles - DA's censorship complaint to be heard today!

Following our urgent High Court application this morning, the Democratic Alliance has just received a letter from ICASA informing us that the hearing on our complaint against the SABC will be held at 18h00 this evening. 

Just a few hours ago the DA announced that we would approach the Gauteng South High Court for an urgent order to compel ICASA to hear our complaint and to reach a decision without any further delay. ICASA is in clear violation of the regulations, which provide that ICASA should reach a final determination on a complaint like this within 48 hours of receipt. This deadline has already been missed. 

We are pleased that ICASA has now decided to move the hearing forward to this evening. Nevertheless, we are not withdrawing our court application before we get an indication at this evening's meeting as to when ICASA will give a final decision. 

We look forward to getting our Ayisafani advert back on the air. 

Statement issued by James Selfe, Chairperson of the DA Federal Executive, April 15 2014

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