Former Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s urgent bid to halt the airing of a tell-all interview with his ex-wife, Nomachule Mngoma, on Showmax’s Untied has been thrown out, reports News24.

Gigaba had turned to the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) with an urgent application to interdict the broadcasting of the interview and what he said were damaging allegations about infidelity, pornography addiction and the misuse of taxpayer funds during their marriage.

The matter was heard yesterday, with his legal team arguing that the continued publication of intimate details would harm his reputation and dignity.

However, Judge Julian Yende wound up striking the matter from the roll, finding it was not urgent and questioning why Gigaba only took action after nine years of similar public allegations.

The judge also slapped Gigaba with a costs order.

In a scathing judgment, Yende repeatedly pointed to Gigaba’s inaction when the various allegations first came to light in 2015. The judge found the urgency had been ‘self-created’ and that Gigaba ‘had failed to give reasons why he would not be able to achieve substantial redress at an (ordinary) hearing’.

MultiChoice’s advocate, Nick Ferreira, argued in court that the allegations Gigaba sought to block – among them infidelity and a plush, taxpayer-funded lifestyle – had been extensively ventilated in various media, including a Moja Love interview – for years.

Ferreira charged: ‘You can’t come for an interdict where the harm you aim to prevent has already occurred.'

GOAT Originals, the show’s production company, further argued that there ‘cannot be irreparable harm’ suffered as a result of broadcasting the allegations when they were already in the public domain, noting that Gigaba had also declined an offer to respond to the claims.

Gigaba’s advocate, Motebang Ramaili, meanwhile, attempted to justify the late application by citing communication issues between the parties and argued that ‘regardless of how long it is, it’s the continued aspect of it’ that warranted intervention.

When Yende pressed him on the nine-year delay, Ramaili maintained that ‘this is the point where he says “I have had enough” and that they sought to stop ‘the continued publishing of defamatory statements’.

According to News24, he, however, conceded that it should have happened earlier.

Yende in his judgment said urgent court was ‘not for those matters where urgency is perceived by the applicant’.

The judge noted that even after Gigaba was informed on 29 May that MultiChoice intended to broadcast the show and given an opportunity to respond, ‘the applicant did nothing’.

‘Any person that was concerned with his dignity would act without delay. This court is satisfied that the applicant has failed to convince the court that he has overcome the threshold.’

However, Yende, said, Gigaba still had options available to him once the interview had aired.

Dario Milo – a partner at Webber Wentzel, which represented Showmax – hailed the judgment as a significant win for media freedom.

MultiChoice can now broadcast Mngoma’s controversial interview, which was initially scheduled for June but delayed to 15 July pending the court outcome.

Full News24 report

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See also full report in The Star