Justice department webinar to unpack ConCourt ruling on naming children in conflict with the law

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development will host a webinar on Friday, 19 June 2026 on the Constitutional Court judgment in Centre for Child Law v Media 24 Ltd and others, the department announced on 18 June.

The session runs from 10h00 to 11h00 on MS Teams. It is co-hosted by the University of Pretoria’s Centre for Child Law, the same centre that brought the case.

The department said the webinar will focus on the judgment and its implications for protecting the rights and dignity of children in conflict with the law. It is aimed at sensitising media houses, government departments and non-governmental organisations to their legal and ethical responsibilities when they report on cases involving children.

That is a wide audience for a one hour session, and it is the point. A judgment of the Constitutional Court binds the state. It also lands on newsrooms, which decide every day whether a child’s name, school, photograph or family details go into a story that will outlive the case itself.

What the department has put on the table

The notice issued by the department is a short one. It names the case, sets the date and time, names the co-host and lists the audience. It does not set out the terms of the judgment, and it does not summarise the reasoning of the court.

That matters for anyone reading the notice as a statement of the law. It is not one. It is an invitation to a briefing, and the briefing is where the department and the Centre for Child Law are expected to take participants through the judgment itself.

What the notice does establish is the department’s own reading of the stakes. It frames the session around the rights and dignity of children in conflict with the law, and around the responsibilities of the people who write about them.

Why the media houses are in the room

A child who is arrested, charged or convicted is not a public figure. The Constitution’s protections for children, and the limits the law places on identifying them, exist precisely because publication is permanent and a criminal case against a child is not.

The department’s notice puts media houses first in the list of those it wants to reach. Newsrooms hold the decision on identification, and that decision is usually made in minutes, under deadline, by a reporter who may never see the judgment.

Sensitising is the department’s word. The practical version is a set of questions a newsroom can apply before publishing: is the child identifiable from the details in the copy, does the public interest in naming outweigh the harm, and what does the law require in this specific case.

The audience beyond the newsroom

State departments and NGOs are named alongside the media. Children in conflict with the law move through police stations, courts, social development offices and places of care, and each of those steps generates records. The responsibilities the department refers to are not confined to what appears in print or on a screen.

The Centre for Child Law’s involvement as co-host keeps the session anchored to the litigation itself. The centre litigated the matter, and its participation gives participants direct access to the case that produced the judgment.

What happens next

The webinar takes place on Friday, 19 June 2026, from 10h00 to 11h00 on MS Teams. Media enquiries are directed to Samuel Modipane, Director: Media Research and Liaison, on 081 440 6179.

The department’s notice, published at justice.gov.za, is a summary announcement rather than the judgment itself. Readers who want the terms of the ruling should go to the court’s own record, and participants who want the department’s and the Centre for Child Law’s reading of it should be on the call.

Source: Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. Read the original item.