AfriForum To Appeal Judgment Banning Apartheid Flag

AfriForum is heading to the Supreme Court of Appeals to overturn the 2019 ruling banning the display of the old South African flag.

In 2019, Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo declared the “gratuitous display” of the flag to be hate speech, unfair discrimination and harassment.

The case was brought by the Nelson Mandela Foundation following a “Black Monday” march against farm murders in 2017 at which the flag was exhibited.

In the heads of arguments, AfriForum acknowledges the flag has the capacity to cause “offence and emotional distress”.

The organisation said it has “no particular love for the flag or what it may represent”.

But it argues the wide-reaching ban is “an unconstitutional infringement of the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, dignity and privacy;” and that it could “set off a series of unintended consequences” including driving “hateful views underground where they cannot be monitored”.

The organisation’s position is that the best remedy for offensive speech is engaging with those who are guilty of it, without using “the strong arm of the law”.