Forget about Johnny Depp – where’s the Ace Magashule defamation showdown?

Give credit when it is due. In the American legal system, they do things. In South Africa, things are a little slower. However, the fault does not seem to be on the system itself. Our people do not seem to follow through. When I first started writing for The Citizen, one of my first columns back in 2019 was a bet that Ace’s threats to sue Buyisile Ngqulwana would not continue. So imagine the surprise I had in 2020, when Ace announced that it is still in pursuit. Not much seems to have happened since then. I also wish Nathi Mthethwa …

Give credit when it is due. In the American legal system, they do things.

In South Africa, things are a little slower. However, the fault does not seem to be on the system itself. Our people do not seem to follow through.

When I first started writing The Citizenone of my first column back in 2019 there was a bet to sue Ace threats Buyer Ngqulwana there would be a lack of follow through. So imagine the surprise I had in 2020, when Ace announced that it is still in pursuit.

Not much seems to have happened since then.

I also wish Nathi Mthethwa would have continued with her defamation case he threatened back in 2019, as he might be too anxious to put us through his ridiculous flag idea.

In other words, as predicted back in 2019, the defamation threats made by our politicians gave the image of having a case without presenting the case itself. In other words, at the time, we were more likely to believe them without having to prove anything.

This is an old tactic to use the authority of the courts without actually going through them.

After all, no one knows that the gun is not loaded. It’s enough to see the gun telling us that you think the holder means business. And the gun smuggler can know this and get the same results they want, but if they are caught, they can never be charged for the kind of charge they would have if the gun was loaded.

As observers, commenting on a matter before the courts is sufficient to lead us to believe that the threat has credibility. But now, the lessons taught in the first year of political school seem to make the kinds of threats.

Can we allow this? Should we allow the courts to be a political tool for publicity management that takes advantage of the reputation of the courts that has developed over the years?

We certainly cannot stop a defamation suit from lodging, and we should not. What we can do is demand that any application lodged be finalized.

Defamation is all about the public perception of the person whose reputation has been damaged. So the public is directly involved in the story and because the slanderous suit is a tool for establishing financial recovery, it makes sense that it can also be used to achieve a good reputation. At least that’s how the political school is taught and used.

So how can those threats of defamation trials be allowed to fade without updating us in the community. All we have to do is surprise us, but we don’t really.

I am happy to promise that we have all forgotten since then and that we have moved on from the infamous threats of Mthethwa and Magashule. If you remember them, I will ask you to remember what they meant.

Ace was involved in allegations that he helped set up the African Movement for Change (ATM), and Mthethwa was unhappy about being involved in the Zondo inquiry.

If they were really unhappy about it, why didn’t we hear about the future scenarios? I can’t be sure, but as I predicted three years ago, some lawyer may have explained the discovery process to them and what types of documents can be hidden.

I doubt you will learn that your correspondence, bank records, and almost all other documents can go through the court during a trial and, well, when that becomes a public record…

We saw some very interesting private data on the lives of two US celebrities. Imagine how interesting it would be if we had access to the bank records of two South African public servants.

Yup, I’m not surprised that these cases have been forgotten after the threats served their purpose.

To retell Bathabile Dlamini; I do not want my “smallanyana skeletons” to come out.