‘Secrecy is the antithesis of transparency, which is intrinsic to democracy. Journalists constantly having to go the legal route to access court stories, or to publish, is willy-nilly obstructionism. It is also expensive to media pockets and democracy itself.’

So says Glenda Daniels, associate professor in media studies at Wits University and Gauteng convener of the SA National Editors’ Forum (Sanef).

‘Journalists are denied access willy-nilly to court proceedings on spurious grounds because, for example, a witness (Zandi Khumalo, the sister of slain soccer hero Senzo Meyiwa’s patner, Kelly Khumalo) declares herself a famous social media icon who needs privacy and protection from attention. Oxymoronic, yet she is granted her wish.’

In her opinion piece on the Daily Maverick site, Daniels adds the media are often told their access will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

‘This can’t be right. Access should be the default position and courts should be the ones interrogated about why they are making such decisions, messing with the public’s right to know.’

She says when there are no facts and too many contradictions, speculation grows and fake news spreads.

‘Secrecy is just plain bad for democracy.’

Daniels notes we now have a commission of inquiry into the Lady R.

‘That an inquiry is set up for this is scary when the President surely can get the information from a phone call. Even worse is that the findings will not be made public. This secrecy is inexplicable.’

Daniels looks at another debacle wrapped in secrecy: the African peace mission in June.

A SAA aircraft landed in Warsaw en route to Ukraine, but then was ‘quarantined’, with journalists ‘tarmacked’ for more than 24 hours. To date, the government has not given a press conference to clear up what happened.

Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, threatened: ‘Maybe we have learnt our lesson that maybe we should not take the media on these kinds of trips.’

To date, says Daniels, we do not know exactly why the plane was grounded. Daniel says there is a complete lack of understanding that, for democracy to thrive, the media has to be the ears and eyes of the public. Regarding continuously applying for access to courts, Daniels notes Sanef held several ‘amicable’ meetings about the problem with the Magistrate’s Commission over the past year or two, but it persists.

‘Research needs to be done into why this is taking place more frequently when the Constitution is clear and magistrates and judges have no vested interest in the cases, or so you would imagine.’

Full opinion piece on the Daily Maverick site