The matter was initially scheduled to sit in April, but a few hours before proceedings were meant to get underway the ANCYL’s legal counsel requested the matter to be postponed. The applicants agreed to the postponement on condition that the ANCYL would cover the legal costs meant for the two-day sitting.

The ANC Secretary-General and former Free State Premier Ace Magashule’s controversial Honourary Doctorate awarded by the Turkish tertiary institution, Bahcesehir University in 2017, forms the background to the contentious statements.

The DA – Jankielsohn in particular - cast doubt around the legitimacy of the honorary doctorate, alleging the Turkish University in question had received approximately R32 million from the provincial government over the 2016/17 financial year prior to awarding Magashule the doctorate. He says in response to this the ANCYL made defamatory and derogatory comments about him in the public space thereafter. “The ANCYL made defamatory comments about me calling me a clown, a redneck, a racist, a Chihuahua and various other things instead of dealing with the issues which we raised, they chose to defame me in a statement in public,” says Jankielsohn. The Free State ANCYL spokesperson, Sello Peterson, has since dismissed the claims as “baseless” adding that they would not stand in a court of law.

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