What the MTBPS means for growth, jobs and the rand

It behind closed doors. Among the accused is a Tulani Dlomo, a controversial intelligence figure associated with former President Jacob Zuma. Now, the Campaign for Free Expression and three other media organizations have launched an urgent court challenge, arguing that the secrecy surrounding the trial undermines the principle of open justice. Nicole Fritz is the executive director of the campaign. Nicole, just explain to us in the broadest

Terms then, why the public needs to have access to a trial involving, as I understand it, highly sensitive state intelligence? Open justice is a sacrosanct principle. It's a principle on which the rule of law depends. It's important not only for the accused, the parties to a matter, certainly a criminal defendant should have the right to enact.

His defence, execute his defence, and have his name, his or her name cleared publicly. But it's also absolutely essential for the accountability of the institutions that uphold our criminal justice system. Their legitimacy and authority depends in large part on transparency, on the ability of the public to observe, to understand, to question and indeed to criticize those processes. As I say, that's true of all the institutions that uphold our criminal justice system, whether that's the National Prosecuting Authority.

Or the police. But I would say it is particularly important, even more important in respect of our courts. They are not elected and they should not be. That is not how our constitutional process works. But they depend for their legitimacy on the openness and the responsiveness and the accountability of their processes. So, Nicole, without getting bogged down in too much legalese, where exactly then does the court's order go too far? And are you challenging the judge's decision?

Or the way in which it is being implemented? Essentially, both. So we are challenging the order that was made on the 15th of October, which imposes very broad restrictions on the public and the media's access to these proceedings. We are saying that order, overly broad as it is, is being implemented as a blanket exclusion, which we say is not.

The way in which that order should be read. So we're applying for a variation of that order to say there may well be circumstances in which national security and protection of witnesses requires that proceedings be held in camera, that the media and the public be barred, but those should be very narrowly crafted and properly justified. But even so, the manner in which this order, the 15th of October order that we're seeking a variance of, the manner in which that is