| Abstrakt: |
Approximately two years ago, both the erstwhile German Democratic Republic (GDR) and South Africa took their first steps towards democracy - both after about forty years of totalitarian rule. Today the GDR has a democratic press system, based on the old West German model. South Africa, on the other hand, is exactly where it was ten years ago despite the lifting of the emergency regulations. The writer examines suggestions in press circles that freedom of the press in South Africa should be enshrined into its new constitution. He concludes that a profound shift in political thinking here would be a precondition for acceptance of the German system, and is of the opinion that press principles in the German constitution, as well as those of that country's federal states, should be protected by law - as a precondition for the survival of a new democratic order in South Africa. |
