Trinity Broadcasting("Trinity") brought an application to the Supreme Court for the review and setting aside of certain conditions of its community television broadcasting licence imposed by ICASA in Trinity Broadcasting (Ciskei) v The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa. Trinity argued that in imposing some of the conditions ICASA failed to apply its mind, and ICASA’s decision was arbitrary, impractical and wholly unreasonable.

The conditions that Trinity sought to impugn related to licence area, broadcasting hours, language, news, employment equity and training. ICASA argued that in relation to an extended broadcasting licence area, that ICASA was still engaged in a process of developing policy guidelines and a regulatory framework for community broadcasting services for the rest of the country and therefore it could consider any application for extension of broadcasting areas by community television broadcasters. The court held that ICASA’s decision were taken in accordance with the law and that the processes adopted by ICASA before the imposition of the conditions were fair and reasonable and that Trinity failed to make out grounds for judicial review of ICASA’s decisions. The application was dismissed with costs.