Cliff, who was axed as judge on Idols after a Tweet of his was labelled as racist by M-Net, will be reinstated after judge Caroline Nicholls ruled in his favour in the Johannesburg High Court. He said the Idols judges were hired to entertain, not to shock and offend.
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Mabece said the social media response towards M-Net had not yet been assessed.
The second involved his permanent reinstatement to the 2016 show, future renewals of his contract, and a demand for R25 million in damages for what he said were M-Net’s harmful comments.
However, Eric Mabuza, one of the lawyers representing Cliff told DESTINY MAN that it was unfair for the DJ to be punished for making a mistake in differentiating between what is freedom of speech and what is hate speech.
M-Net removed Gareth from the show following a backlash on Twitter after he commented on a Facebook post by KwaZulu-Natal realtor Penny Sparrow in which she called black beachgoers monkeys.
Her verdict related to only the first part of Cliff’s case.
She also did not grant an order Mr Cliff had asked for – to interdict the start of auditions, due to begin today (Friday), unless he was there. M-Net denied there was. This was how things were done in previous years.
“Cliff demonstrated a clear lack of empathy for the history of South Africa and M-Net did not wish to participate in fuelling further racially-based divisions”.
Mabece said it was not yet established if there would an application for leave to appeal against the judgment. He has made out a prima facie case for the contractual relief he contends for …
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“M-Net was wrong even from a labour law perspective”.
