implementation is overseen by the South African Human Rights Commission, an independent constitutional body. The South African Act contains exemption provisions that conform with international human rights standards and is subject to the public interest test. Its major weakness though is that it provides for appeals against decisions of public and private bodies to be lodged with the courts which are largely inaccessible to individuals in terms of costs and inordinate delays. Advocate Tlakula said all laws relating to criminal defamation wherever they exist should be repealed or amended in conformity with the provisions of the Declaration on the Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa. Laws on defamation should respect the following standards: - no one shall be found liable for true statements, opinions or statements regarding public figures which it was reasonable to make in the circumstances - public figures shall be required to tolerate a greater degree of criticism - sanctions shall never be so severe as to inhibit the right to freedom of expression Print Media banned publications As of December 2008 despite the Amendments to AIPPA , growth in the print media remained stunted in the wake of the ban against publications such as The Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, The Tribune, and Weekly Times. In the case of The Daily News published by Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), its quest for re-registration has been pending before the statutory Media and Information Commission (MIC) since its closure in September 2003. Article XIX of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) recognises the importance of the right to freedom of expression and the role of the media in a multi-party democracy. In that vein parties to the Agreement undertook to expedite the “immediate processing” of all applications for reregistration and registration in terms of both the Broadcasting Services Act and AIPPA. The retention of statutory media regulation and the failure to unconditionally lift the banning of the aforementioned publications in view of the GPA serves to confirm the lack of political will to free the media environment in a country which has no privately owned daily newspapers save for The Herald and The Chronicle which are published by the government- controlled Zimbabwe Newspapers Group. The existing independent weeklies, notably The Financial Gazette, Zimbabwe Independent and Standard have limited circulation which is mostly restricted to urban areas due to the acute shortages of newsprint and prohibitive production and transport costs arising from the hyper-inflationary environment. Media Policy and Law Reforms It is MISA-Zimbabwe’s objective view that the print media environment will remain constricted in the absence of a holistic democratic media policy and legislative framework benchmarked in conformity with Article 9 of the African Charter, Windhoek Declaration and Banjul Declaration 8