The Mail and Guardian has won an important legal battle against a private company seeking to get the paper to reveal its sources on a story about corruption in the prisons system.
On Thursday, south Gauteng High Court judge Moroa Tsoka dismissed an application, with costs, by the company Bosasa which sought an order compelling the newspaper to reveal its sources for stories involving the company.
The Mail and Guardian said in a statement that " Bosasa had insisted that in order to prepare for its pending defamation suit against the M&G, it needed to know who provided investigative reporter Adriaan Basson, with documentation that was an important element in his reporting on corruption allegations against the company."
Judge Tsoka dismissed the application with costs, including the cost of two counsel.
"The judgment is an important victory for journalism," said editor Nic Dawes.
"It strongly upholds the principle that journalists must be allowed protect the identity of whistle-blowers who are granted anonymity in return for providing information that would otherwise never see the light of day."
Dawes said they agree with Judge Tsoka ruling that "if indeed freedom of the press is a sine qua non for democracy, it is important that in carrying out this public duty for the public good, the identity of their sources should not be revealed, particularly, where the information so revealed would not have been publicly known."
The judge said "this essential and critical role of the media, which is more pronounced in our nascent democracy, founded on openness, where corruption has become cancerous, needs to be fostered rather than denuded."
