At the end of January 2017, comments on the Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill were due. I acted for some of our leading stand-up comedians and satirists (including the cartoonist Zapiro) in making submissions on the harm posed by the Bill for legitimate satire.
I penned a piece for the Business Day, which was published on 21 February, and which summarized the issues that we dealt with in our submission (prepared by myself and two junior counsel at Group 621, Advocates Stuart Scott (until he left for the Bar, an associate in my team), and Itumeleng Phalane). You can find the submission itself here, published on Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression and Information website (I am fortunate to be the South African free speech expert in this project).
Here’s my Business Day piece if you missed it: