Law News: September 2025
Walking the streets of London, Paris, and Rome, I’ve often found myself pausing in unexpected alleyways, staring at the walls rather than the landmarks. During my travels, I made it a quiet mission to follow the art of Banksy and other street artists like Jef Aérosol (the French stencil pioneer, famous for his red arrow signature).
I was lucky enough to photograph several works that no longer exist today—painted over, demolished with their buildings, or scrubbed away by local authorities. Looking back at those photos, I sometimes think: what a privilege to have witnessed those pieces before they were erased from history.
This week, Banksy’s latest courtroom mural in London became the newest addition to that long list of contested, censored, or destroyed works. And it once again raised big legal questions about the rights of artists, the powers of the state, and the boundaries of freedom of expression.
The Banksy Case
Banksy’s mural, painted directly onto the wall of the Royal Courts of Justice, depicted a judge beating a protester with a gavel. A bold and unmistakably political statement. But almost as soon as it appeared, it was covered up, with authorities citing the heritage status of the court building. Being a listed building meant no alterations—even ones that looked like art—were permitted without consent.
The irony is sharp: the piece critiqued judicial authority, only to be literally erased by that very authority.
The case poses age-old but still unresolved questions like the following :
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- Do artists have rights to works placed on public or private property without permission?
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- Do property owners or the state have the final say over erasure?
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- And when art is politically provocative, does removal slide into censorship?
South Africa Has Been Here Before
Although the Banksy case is unfolding in the UK, South Africa has a long history of wrestling with similar dilemmas.
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- Brett Murray’s “The Spear” (2012) provoked outrage for its satirical depiction of President Zuma, leading to court applications, vandalism of the painting, and national debate about dignity versus artistic freedom.
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- Zapiro’s cartoons have consistently pushed the line, most famously with the “Lady Justice” cartoon, testing the tolerance of political satire under defamation law.
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- Ayanda Mabulu’s works regularly stir controversy, challenging racial, political, and cultural power structures through explicit imagery.
Each case forced our courts and society to balance Section 16 of the Constitution (freedom of expression, including artistic creativity) with competing rights to dignity and reputation.
The Legal Framework
In South Africa, three main legal touch points apply to controversial or ephemeral street art:
Firstly, the Constitution have Section 16 that protects artistic freedom but also Section 10 which guarantees dignity.
History shows that these two often collide in any art controversies.
Secondly, Our Copyright Act (albeit going through changes) protects both economic rights and moral rights—the right to be credited and the right to object to distortion or destruction of a work. Street artists, even anonymous ones, may in law argue their moral rights are infringed when their works are destroyed.
Important though that our Municipal by-laws and heritage legislation (similar to the listed-building laws in the UK) may however justify removal of street art, regardless of its artistic merit.
Why This Matters
The erasure of Banksy’s mural is not just about one wall in London—it’s part of a global struggle over art in public space.
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- For artists: It’s a reminder that works placed in public without consent remain vulnerable, no matter how valuable or famous.
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- For the public: Each removal deprives society of a conversation piece, a critique, or even a mirror to its flaws.
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- For South Africa: It reinforces that our courts are central in striking a balance between protecting creativity and upholding competing constitutional rights.
A Personal Reflection
When I stood in front of Jef Aérosol’s “Chuuuttt!!!” mural near the Pompidou Centre in Paris, or a Banksy rat tucked on the side of a shopfront in Shoreditch, I never thought that years later those works might no longer exist. Today, they live only photographs and in my memory.
That’s unfortunately the fragile reality of street art or any controversial art: It is at once powerful, vulnerable, and temporary. The law can protect it to some extent, but just as often, the law enables its disappearance.
For South African artists, curators, and collectors, the lesson is clear: document your works, know your rights, and remember that sometimes the law is as much a paintbrush as it is an eraser.
Banksy’s courtroom mural may be gone, but the conversation it sparked remains.
In South Africa, where art has always been political, we should embrace that debate in my view rather than bury it or erase it.