THE defamation lawsuit in which Mayor Matthew Shikongo is demanding N$300,000 in damages from weekly tabloid Informanté, resumed in the High Court before Judge Louis Muller this week with a testimony on media law and ethics from Rhodes University lecturer Robert Brand.  

Brand, who teaches media ethics and economic journalism at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, told the High Court that the issue of confidentiality of sources is not yet legally settled.
He argued that Informanté editor Max Hamata’s refusal to disclose his sources in the first round of the case could be used to draw negative inferences against him if the court did not make a decision on whether or not he was obliged to disclose these sources.
“The matter of non-disclosure has not been settled in law,” Brand said. “It is widely accepted in journalism ethics all over the world, it is an almost universal principle that journalists have the duty to protect their sources.”
“It is essential for the administration of justice that the source be protected,” he said. The first round of the case closed in March with the High Court threatening Hamata with imprisonment for refusing to disclose his sources.
Shikongo, through his lawyer Pieter Henning, SC, withdrew his demands for Hamata to name his sources on the last day of the first round in February 2008.
 The court allowed the matter to rest there, but without ruling on whether journalists should be compelled to disclose their sources.
Shikongo is suing Informanté, Trustco Group Holdings and Free Press Printers over a story headlined ‘Fincky rocks in land deal’, which exposed irregularities in a land deal whereby the municipality did not exercise its pre-emptive right to buy land back before its resale.