EFF heads to the police station as Mabuyane vows to fight back in court

By Anita Dangazele

• Oscar Mabuyane lost his urgent court bid to stop Malema repeating claims he stole a master’s degree from the University of Fort Hare.

• The EFF will open a criminal fraud case against Premier Mabuyane at KuGompo Police Station on Thursday 25 June at 10am while he studies his appeal options.

Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane lost his court battle against Julius Malema on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning the EFF had announced it was taking the fight to the police station — and Mabuyane was already signalling he would take his to a higher court.

The dispute began in April, when Malema stood outside the kuGompo magistrate’s court and told supporters that Mabuyane had stolen a master’s degree from the University of Fort Hare. Malema had just been sentenced to five years in prison for firing a rifle into the air at a rally eight years ago. Standing outside the court that morning, he pointed at the Premier and called for his arrest.

Mabuyane demanded an apology. Malema refused. The Premier took him to the Eastern Cape High Court on an urgent basis, asking the court to declare the statements false and defamatory and to bar Malema from repeating them.

Judge Jannie Eksteen dismissed the application with costs. He found that once the defence of truth and public interest is established, a public figure cannot be shielded from criticism — particularly in politics.

The ruling turned on a 2021 forensic report by Horizon Forensics into Mabuyane’s registration at Fort Hare. The report found that ghostwriters had worked on his master’s proposal, and that he had applied for PhD study while claiming to hold a master’s degree he had never been awarded. Mabuyane did not challenge those findings in court.

He pushed back in a statement after the judgment. Mabuyane said the court itself found that Malema’s remarks were defamatory, and that the case failed on a single point of legal interpretation.

He said his legal team was examining grounds for an appeal. He has maintained throughout that he never held a master’s degree and never claimed to.

The EFF did not wait.

On Wednesday it announced it will open a criminal fraud case against Mabuyane at kuGompo Police Station on Thursday 25 June at 10am.

A separate case in which Mabuyane is challenging the university’s decision to deregister him from the master’s programme is still before the courts.

Pictured above: Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane.

Image source: Oscar Mabuyane/Facebook Page