A report uncovers media flawed legal systems across Africa

A South African based media practitioner Professor Guy Berger recently gave an inside look at the recent United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) publication he spearheaded on ”Media Legislation in Africa”’. Professor Berger who heads the department of Journalism and Media studies at Rhodes University, located in Grahamstown, South Africa, discussed how the report’s findings on inadequate legal systems could be used and disseminated to push Africa into the vanguard of media law reform. The report has revealed that out of 12 African countries, approximately one third of these are not fulfilling their commitment to international protocols. For example, Tanzania and Kenya do not specifically mention freedom of the media in their constitutions.

Professor Guy Berger of Rhodes University

The report examined the status of journalism in ten constitutional democracies across Africa including Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. The countries were selected on the basis that they “have a comparative benchmarking for stakeholders in them to promote media law reform in the interests of democracy and development,” says Berger.
However, even constitutions with reference to a free media can be insufficient inasmuch as who can and cannot be a journalist can be determined at the whim of authorities utilising ambiguous constitutional provisions. Though as the study points out, the current legislation in numerous African countries is at the more local level often does not meet the benchmark set by international standards of press freedom and freedom of expression and can even conflict with it. For example, in Senegal, the constitution defines what comprises a journalistic career (similar to Mozambique) and requires registration. Similar draft laws are present in Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. In Mali, only individuals with certain qualifications can be editors. Journalists in Nigeria are also subject to registration. In South Africa and Ghana, and to a lesser extent Mozambique, any citizen can exercise their right to freedom of speech through journalism.
The report shows that media laws are also often rooted in unclear provisions. For example, licensing and registration requirements are commonly misused because of arbitrary application—they can be easily denied or taken away. The legacy of criminal defamation and insult laws are also continuously used in all countries surveyed except for South Africa and Ghana.