Cape Town — President Jacob Zuma yesterday gave his strongest support yet for the creation of a media appeals tribunal by insisting that, at present, those wronged by the print media have no mechanism to protect their rights.

Mr Zuma has in the past couched his views on the creation of a tribunal as being a policy suggestion from the ruling African National Congress that had not been adopted by the government, but yesterday he told the National Assembly that an apology ordered by the press ombudsman often did not address massive damage that could be done by inaccurate news reports.

The president has been on the receiving end of critical news reports about both his personal affairs and the performance of his government in its first year in office.

Responding to Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Athol Trollip during presidential question time, Mr Zuma said his remarks in an interview with the Sunday Times last week supporting the tribunal were based on the ANC's proposal.

While again saying he welcomes the "debate", Mr Zuma clearly showed he agrees with the ANC view that the media frequently "overstepped " the mark and shows a lack of respect for the dignity of those who feature in news stories. He said he agreed that incorrect banner headlines were often followed by small apologies buried in the body of the newspaper.

"The point is that there is no recourse and therefore you need a tribunal, but this tribunal will not offend the freedom of the press."

Mr Zuma said that while the media council was doing its own review of the self-regulation regime for complaints, this was as a result of "us" raising the issue of a tribunal. "We are concerned about the pain caused by reporting and so we put our proposal for a media appeals tribunal."

An angry Inkatha Freedom Party MP, Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, said there were things such as slavery that should not be debated and this debate on a media appeals tribunal fell into the same category. He said the solution lay in taking the press to court in cases where it had defamed an individual.

The president responded that it is his democratic right to hold his views but insisted that the ANC fought for human rights, including the freedom of the press, and "nobody can teach us anything about that".

He said the ANC and government will defend the rights of the media but "that does not mean that we will succumb to unfair reporting".

Mr Zuma again insisted that the media appeals tribunal has not been discussed by the government and explained that the idea originated "in the resolutions of the 52nd national conference of the ruling party of the year 2007".

The resolution proposing the investigation states that the purpose is to promote the school of thought that articulates media freedom within the context of the human rights ethos of the constitution. It promotes the view that the right to freedom of expression should not be elevated above other equally important rights such as the right to privacy and more important rights and values such as human dignity.