THE FOURTH ESTATE

During his speech to mark the traditional re-opening of the Supreme Court last year, the former Chief Justice Vivekanand Alleear made the following remarks which was faithfully reported by the State broadcasting media and press: “Journalistic integrity is the cornerstone of the media’s credibility, and strict adherence to recognized ethics and standards is the foundation of all trust between the press and their audience, and knowledge of what constitutes a free and fair press is vital. We have, in the recent past, witnessed an upsurge in the number of articles in the local press appearing to have less to do with servicing (sic) the public’s right to know, but rather aimed towards casting the justice system into an unfavourable light. The basic tenets of journalism are that the job of the press is to report the news, not to design it, and to investigate, not regurgitate”.

There is an adage, which started in America during the early seventies following the forced resignation of President Richard Nixon, which says that the press – especially the printed media, is the Fourth Estate. This came about, as a result of the accepted wisdom that Nixon would not have resigned if it was not for the Washington Post, which published a series of leaks and revelations that it was a group of people working for his re-election campaign who broke into the ofﬁces of the rival Democratic Party at the Watergate complex. The ensuing scandal has been immortalised in the movie All the President’s Men and gave celebrity status to two young reporters of the Washington Post newspaper, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.

THE FIRST ESTATE, ACCORDING TO THIS ADAGE IS THE EXECUTIVE – that is, the President, as Head of State and Chief Executive (in Seychelles as well); the second is the Legislature – Congress in the US (in our case the National Assembly); while the Third estate is the Judiciary (in America the ﬁnal court is the Supreme Court, in Seychelles the Court of Appeals). In both America and Seychelles, the ﬁrst two are directly elected by the people.

Like America, in Seychelles too our judges are also appointed. Except that in America the Executive (the President) THE FOURTH ESTATE nominates the judges and the Congress (the Senate representing the 50 states to be precise) approves or disapproves.

Here in Seychelles, the mechanism agreed to between the SPPF and the DP at the Constitutional Commission for the appointment of judges was for an independent body (the Constitutional Appointments Authority or CAA) to be responsible to look for and select the person to be appointed as a judge on either the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. The Constitution itself details the qualiﬁcations and experiences needed for someone to be eligible for appointment as a judge on the various benches. In effect, it is the CAA who appoints the judges. The President of the Republic simply legalises the selection by signing and ﬁxing the public seal of the State to the appointment document. In effect, the President of the Republic simply rubber stamps the appointment made by the CAA. Under former President Rene and our current President Michel neither the spirit nor the letter of the Constitution was followed. With the connivance of lawyer France Bonte – whose own appointment as Chairman of the CAA violated the spirit of the Constitution, incompetent and politically correct judges were appointed.

HOW DOES THE FOURTH ESTATE FIT INTO THE SCHEME OF THINGS IN SEYCHELLES?

While the press is a generic term to mean all media in today’s context, it is clear that the former Chief Justice’s comment was directed at the printed press. Both in America, and now in Seychelles, if the Chief Justice’s words are any guide, The Fourth Estate, is an entity of its own – unaccountable to no one, only its readers and advertisers who provide the income to pay the bills. While advertisers make the difference in America, in Seychelles this is a different kettle of ﬁsh.

WHEN WE EXAMINE THE MEDIA IN SEYCHELLES, WE FIND THAT all are afﬁliated with political parties. You may think that this comment is applicable only to the printed press, but you would be wrong. There is only one broadcasting medium in Seychelles in the form of television and radio. It is owned by the State as it has always been, even before the one-party state. But it was only during the one-party state that the medium became an instrument of propaganda exclusively for the party in control of the government (under the one-party state constitution, the state was in fact, legally owned by the SPPF party).

A political paper such as this newspaper gets very little advertising revenues because businesses are afraid of losing their license if they are seen to advertise in it. In a democracy that we purport to be, that should be preposterous to contemplate. Unfortunately, the Licensing Act, an instrument of control created during the one-party state, continues to be the law of the land aided an abated by the politically correct judges and Attorney General. Advertising in a political paper which does not support the ruling party can result in your business license being revoked or worse, a complete audit from the tax man and a hefty assessment. Advertising in The People, organ of the SPPF does not have the same implication.

he bulk of the newspaper advertising revenue, however, goes to the Seychelles Nation, the daily published by the government. Nation started life as the Seychelles Bulletin during the colonial era when it was the main print information outlet for government information. After independence, its name was changed to Seychelles Nation in an attempt to emulate the Kenyan newspaper. But it was only under the on-party state that it became the instrument of the party in power and continues to be so to this day. Today, Seychelles Nation gets the bulk of the of advertising revenue, specially from the retail trade controlled by families of Indian descent, and more recently foreign owned business, especially in the tourism industry.

WITH RESTORATION OF THE MULTIPARTY SYSTEM IN DECEMBER 1991, THE FORMER Radio and Television Seychelles (RTS) was placed under a new legal entity called the Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) deﬁned by an Act passed by the one-party state legislature. Although part of its remit is to ensure that “news, news features, current affairs and its other programmes are presented impartially, accurately and with due regard to public interest”, everyone of any consequence in the corporation is appointed by and serve at the pleasure of the President of the Republic. In practice no one at SBC dares to be impartial to the SPPF and the President. In a sense, therefore, one member of the Fourth Estate has been hijacked by another, the First.

When recently, a political party tried to set up a radio station, the First Estate not only joined forces with the Third (legislature) to outlaw it in deﬁance of the Constitution, but also sent batons and rubber bullets wielding police thugs to knock the living daylights out of the handful of supporters who had gathered to protest peacefully near our parliament building. Now we hear that in a political deal between struck the two political parties, a handful of demonstrators will be ﬁnancially compensated by the government, although no police ofﬁcer involved has been prosecuted nor convicted for breaking the law. And we thought the demonstrators were there to defend their fundamental rights.

Historically, the printed press in Seychelles has always been the organ of a particular interest group. Until the early sixties, the main interest groups behind newspapers were the colonial administration which published the Seychelles Bulletin; the Catholic Church which published originally Actions Catholique but later renamed l’Echo des Iles, a monthly; and the “grand blancs” land owners or Taxpayers Association, which published a daily called Le Seychellois. With the advent of party politics in the early sixties political parties also published their own newspapers. Apart from the Democratic Party and the Seychelles Peoples’ United Party (the predecessor of the SPPF) a short lived party called Le Parti Seychellois also published its own weekly journal.

It was evident that the former Chief Justice had this newspaper in mind when he made his comment last year. The Fourth Estate has made it in the annals of the history of Seychelles too. We, at this newspaper, are proud of our achievements in becoming the principal agent of the Fourth Estate in Seychelles today.