We+are+no+nation+of+fools,+YCL

YCL “Bottom Line”, Issue 2, Volume 2, 22nd August – 5th September 2005
=We are no nation of Fools!=

The problem with the National Prosecutions Authority (NPA) is that it has concluded that we are a nation of forty-something-million-fools and that we will not see injustice were injustice is being done. It has also concluded that we are a nation of ‘see no evil and hear no evil’ that we will not speak out against the evil intentions that they have to determine the political future of this country.

The raid conducted by the NPA on close to 21 places believed to be related to the Deputy President proves that the NPA is convinced that we will unawares allow them to make a mockery of the justice system and abuse their powers to advance a political agenda. No nation can be taken unawares in the night darkness, and be transformed into fools, especially given the history of our nation and the injustices of the past. The raids were, indeed, reminiscent of the past and cannot be foolishly left unattended.

One of the most powerful instruments that the Apartheid regime had in order to sustain its oppressive character was the justice system. Most of the institutions of the law that were created were solely meant to continue to press on the lid of oppression, counter-revolution, domination and so forth. Clandestine institutions such as Vlakplas which murdered many South Africans; intelligence operatives mainly known by key individuals within the Apartheid regime who masterminded the murdering of anti-Apartheid individuals; military style operatives such as the Third Force who maimed and killed and fuelled violence throughout the country; co-optive mechanisms such as Askaris where black and white people were used as spies against the National Liberation Movement; these dirty tactics were all used to perpetuate the dominance of the Apartheid regime.

The nature and character of this judicial, intelligence, police and investigative forces were to work against the people’s fight for ascendence to power, and with distinction sustained the Apartheid regime for many years. This was not the peoples law, but the law against the people. Many a people died to create a self-respecting and credible judicial system, accountable to the people and serving the needs and interests of the people. Post 1994 the ANC-led government sought to change all of these things, and create institutions that are people-led, people oriented, people centred and institutions that upholds the constitution of the country.

As the ANC said in its 93rd Anniversary Statement presented by President of the ANC:

“The Freedom Charter envisions a society in which 'All shall be equal before the law'; that 'All shall enjoy equal human rights'; and that 'All national groups shall have equal rights'.

“Today, we enjoy a Constitution, which guarantees the rights of all South Africans, including the right to equality. It protects the rights of all people to life and human dignity, freedom and security, privacy, and citizenship. It protects the right of all people to freedom of religion, belief and opinion; freedom of expression, association and movement.

“The task we face is progressively to work to ensure that these rights are upheld, and that these freedoms become part of the lived daily reality of all South Africans. We need, in particular, to continue to work to eradicate the legacy of racism, racial discrimination and oppression. We need similarly to eradicate gender discrimination and oppression, and ensure that all South Africans do indeed have equal and unfettered access to opportunity.

“We need to ensure that all have equal protection under the law, and that all have access to the institutions of state designed to protect and uphold their rights.

“We face the continuing and important challenge to work for the transformation of the judiciary. Much work has already been done to address the race and gender imbalances within this institution. Nevertheless, more progress has to be achieved in this regard.

“However, we are also confronted by the similarly important challenge to transform the collective mindset of the judiciary to bring it into consonance with the vision and aspirations of the millions who engaged in struggle to liberate our country from white minority domination.

“The reality can no longer be avoided that many within our judiciary do not see themselves as being part of these masses, accountable to them, and inspired by their hopes, dreams and value systems. If this persists for too long, it will inevitably result in popular antagonism towards the judiciary and our courts, with serious and negative consequences for our democratic system as a whole.

“We have the task and the responsibility to mobilise all sections of the community to join in the People's Contract to work for the realisation of their rights, including the rights contained in the Constitution to housing, health care, food, water and social security. We need to pay particular attention to the rights of those in society who remain vulnerable to neglect or abuse - children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. We need to continue to work to building a caring state and a caring society.”

This represents in brief the viewpoint of the ANC and the National Liberation Movement towards the important task of transforming the judiciary. As the YCL, we believe that we need to urgently, as indicated above ensure that we raise the ‘important challenge to transform the collective mindset of the judiciary to bring it into //consonance// with the //vision and aspirations of the millions who engaged in struggle to liberate our// country from white minority domination’ and not to subject these millions into the victims of their own individual and collective successes.

In South Africa, the judiciary, all of its arms including the NPA are viewed wrongly as sacrosanct; presided upon by men and women anointed and chosen to prevail over the lives of others; people without views and public opinions and who are committed to the service of the country and its constitution; people with ultimate non-partisan and unprejudiced views and most, although perfectly served the systems of the Apartheid government, have disowned those views. These wrong views on the judiciary should be challenged and corrected.

Judges can be racist, they can be anti-gay, some may be anti-prostitution, whilst others may be very sexist and have political views on a number of issues, and judges can surely be anti-communist or anti-christ and sometimes be very religious persons. Given all of these, therefore, judges can have their own human weakness, prejudice!

Like in the biblical sense, the judiciary is as perfect and without error an institution that when criticism is levelled against it, those speaking against the actions of the judiciary are accused of wanting to interfere with the separate powers as enshrined by the constitution.

When the President of the ANC, Thabo Mbeki concluded the January 08 Statement, the ever critical and small voice of the Democratic Alliance already accused him of wanting to control the justice system. They accused him of wanting to have a justice system that is a lapdog of the ANC and that will perpetuate its needs and interest. They fired the usual separation of executive powers to advance their arguments.

The Leader of the Democratic Alliance said in response that

“…the issue of racism in the judiciary must be clearly separated from the issue of the so-called “transformation” of the judiciary. At the moment the ANC is using charges of real or imagined racism to intimidate the judiciary and create a more executive-minded bench…

…stung by its defeat at the Supreme Court of Appeal in the pharmaceutical pricing case late last year, and looking ahead to a number of critical judicial decisions in the next few months, the ANC has launched a well-planned series of attacks on the independence of the South African judiciary.”

Leon had earlier said, when addressing the South African Reading Group at the New York University Law School in November last year, that

“…The increasing emphasis on race and racial "transformation" in the judiciary is perhaps but one way in which the executive branch of government is encroaching on judicial independence…”

This has been a consistent line that hides behind the transformation of the judiciary and the subjection of its authority on the will of the people. The Democratic Alliance manages to successfully alienate the issue of race from the issue of transformation, however, they forget that, whether black or white, the majority of judges currently practising in the public service held and protected the Apartheid machinery and prosecuted many anti-Apartheid fighters both here and in Southern Africa; that many in the judiciary never denounced Apartheid as a philosophy of evil and swore their allegiance to the new democratic order.

The question of the transformation of the justice system is far from the question of race, but rather, the whole question of accepting the new democratic order and serving its interests and ensuring that it protects its constitution. Judges make laws that affect the lives of South Africans and they remain un-elected, unaccountable to the public and are protected by the DA and its cohorts from public scrutiny.

The reaction of the DA on the raid conducted by the Scorpions is no surprise at all, opting to condemn the Protection Unit of the ANC Deputy President and totally forgetting the sacrosanct rights that the ANC Deputy President enjoys and contained in the constitution, again, in the liberal fashion of ‘upholding law and order’.

When the ANCYL and the YCL accused Judge Hillary Squires of playing political justice in the Schabir Shaik matter we were accused of disrespecting the law and being irresponsible by many including those who supported the ANC’s January 08 Statement. The facts presented about the Judge having been a practising politician before in Rhodesia, and also having served the Apartheid government and never denounced of it remain uncontested.

There are many other incidents wherein the justice system has played into the political agenda of the day; sought to defeat the political aims enshrined in the constitutions, created laws that undermines the political will and democratic authority of the government of the day and basically defended the “old Apartheid” manner of doing things.

The acquittal of the Chemical Basson from the very same courts is but one, the plea bargain with Mark Thatcher who orchestrated a coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea amd many other cases reflects the unwillingness of the judiciary to transform into what the political climate requires of them.

In their Thursday the Eighteenth drama, the Scorpions, in an attempt to take the nation as fools, appointed the former head of Vlakplass, an Apartheid killing-machine and other security forces to embarrass the deputy president of the ANC. This is not an isolated case of course, where the Scorpions sketches a drama, play it out by co-opting actors and inviting the media and crawl back in the middle of the night to return what they had confiscated.

In the many publicised and televised raids that the Scorpions conducted none of those have borne any fruits so much so that the achievement section of the website of the NPA remains under construction.

The act by the NPA on their Thursday the Eighteenth drama showed a sense of desperation and signalled that the case against the Deputy President of the ANC may be very weak. It was nothing more than a political game in response to the COSATU calls that there may be an unfair trial against the Deputy President of the ANC. It was also a return to Apartheid era style of victimisation and intimidation into submission and confession in a different and enlightened political democracy. In the many “cumbersome ways to kill a cat” the NPA chose the longest and ludicrous one which compromised their integrity and independence, that of embarrassing the deputy president of the ANC by raiding his house at 6am.

Those who continue to argue for the independence of the judiciary, and those in the judiciary who do as they feel because of the separation of powers need to know that the judiciary, including the NPA are a product of the peoples blood and sacrifice and the very same people will not stand by as their noble institutions are used to fuel political tensions. And as the January 8 2005 Statement proclaimed “…the reality can no longer be avoided that many within our judiciary do not see themselves as being part of these masses, accountable to them, and inspired by their hopes, dreams and value systems…. If this persists for too long, it will inevitably result in popular antagonism towards the judiciary and our courts, with serious and negative consequences for our democratic system as a whole…”

The YCL will continue to support the leadership collective of the ANC from such attacks, and in that way, extending our support to the majority of South Africans who fought so hard for this democracy, even if it means being labelled. We believe that the integrity of this leadership can only be defended by the youth of our country.

And as for the NPA, transform or suffer. That’s the Bottomline, cos the YCL said so!


 * BUTI MANAMELA**

The Bottomline is the Online Newsletter of the Young Communist League of South Africa and is published every two weeks in our website. The Bottomline represents an indepth analysis, news, views and opinions of the YCLSA on critical matters that relates to to the transformation of our society from a young communist perspective. You can read the newsletter -mail by visiting our website on [|www.ycl.org.za]. We are currently working on the subscriber list and will soon be able to send it to your email.