The SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections says member states should ensure "equal opportunity for all political parties to access the state media" (2.1.5).
The African Charters on Democracy, Elections and Governance states that state parties must "ensure fair and equitable access by contesting parties and
candidates to state controlled media during elections" (Chapter 7, Article 17).
Since the SADC Principles and the African Charter have been adopted by the Naitonal Assembly, they are part of Namibian law.
What bearing did the two instruments have on the outcome of the RDP, CoD vs. NBC court case on Friday, which resulted in the NBC withdrawing its offer of free airtime for party political broadcasts? The opposition parties had objected to the NBC's system for allocating airtime: 40 percent was to be split equally between all parties contesting the election and 60 percent divided among parties in the National Assembly according to their numbers of seats. Swapo with 55 out of 72 seats in the Assembly would have received the lion's share of the broadcasts.
In addition: What bearing could the two instruments have on the NBC's coverage of party activities in its news broadcasts, if any?
Election Watch is a project of the Institute for Public Policy Research in Windhoek, Namibia.