A South African judge created “a legal precedent” allowing journalists to protect anonymous sources, the Center for International Media Assistance reported.
The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit against The Mail and Guardian over a 2009 article reporting that the company ” Bosasa had won a number of multimillion-Rand tenders through corrupt practices with the department of correctional services,” according to CIMA. Bosasa claimed The Mail and Guardian libeled him for calling it corrupt and during “the discovery procedure,” Bosasa called for all sources – even though The Mail and Guardian redacted that information. (For more background on the case, check out this February story from the Mail and Guardian about the newspaper’s fight to protect sources.)
The judge ruled that the case related to “the correctness of the article” and “not the identity of the sources,” according to CIMA.