Mbuyiseni Ndlozi repeats Gordhan is ‘a dog of white monopoly capital’

Moments after the Equality Court dismissed Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s hate speech application against EFF leader Julius Malema, EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi took to Twitter to reiterate that Gordhan was “a dog of white monopoly capital”.

These were the same words used by Malema in November last year when he was outside the state capture commission of inquiry in Parktown, which resulted in Gordhan lodging a complaint against him.

Ndlozi, who tweeted that Gordhan was not above the law, was not the only one basking in the EFF’s victory. The EFF’s deputy president, Floyd Shivambu, also weighed in to reflect that the EFF had defeated the application of the “God of STRATCOM”.

Gordhan’s application against Malema was dismissed with costs as Judge Roland Sutherland found that while the utterances were indeed hateful and somewhat juvenile, they did not amount to hate speech. He said Gordhan’s legal team failed to prove that Malema’s comments violated the Equality Act.

Malema has indicated that courts could fall into the trap of silencing freedom of expression.

At the Nasrec Expo Centre to announce the party’s second National People’s Assembly, he told reporters how the EFF’s detractors were now using courts and the law to fight battles against the party.

He said the courts were “willingly or unwillingly” falling into the trap of silencing freedom of expression and the exercising of political rights because people who had money “can imprison you by imposing a heavy lawsuit on you”.

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