The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on Tuesday welcomed the Gauteng High Court ruling against former Johannesburg Transport MMC Kenny Kunene for hate speech towards EFF president Julius Malema, pleased that the judgment will help prevent “vulgar individuals” from bringing what it describes as "prison-learned behaviour" into politics.

The High Court found that Kunene committed hate speech by calling Malema a cockroach and ordered him to issue an unequivocal apology within one-month of the order being given.

The Gauteng High Court further interdicted Kunene from referring to Malema using this term in future and ordered Kunene to pay costs.

“In a judgement that affirms the right to human dignity of our president, the Gauteng High Court reflected on these utterances as outside the bounds of political discourse, stating that they enter the realm of dehumanisation.

“The court was unambiguous in its reflection of how Kunene's despicable conduct was an expression of hate speech in the textual sense, when one reads section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000 (the Equality Act), stating that this act in this instance can be read as preventing political speech from descending into acts of dehumanisation which can be reflected upon historically,” the party mused.

The EFF retorted that it would continue to ensure that the political space was not tainted by “foul-mouthed associates of syndicates”, encouraging the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to improve its capacity to rehabilitate convicts to avoid producing such individuals.

The EFF said it had always maintained that Kunene, and his political leader Patriotic Alliance (PA) leader Gayton McKenzie, were a representation of the “failure of the Correctional Services system” to rehabilitate convicts.

“…their inability to discern the difference between political language and discourse, and blatant hateful rhetoric that is rooted in historical instances of genocide, is yet another reflection of that,” the EFF stated.

The court also rubbished the suggestion that the term "cockroach" was valid if read as a response to Malema's remarks regarding the inclusion of ex-convicts in government in the form of Kunene and the PA.

The EFF noted that the court “rightly” referred to its comments as having been made in “good faith and interpretable” as a reflection of concern for public interest, “as it is a fact that Kunene and McKenzie are indeed ex-convicts”.