MANTASHE AND ANC ENDANGER RULE OF LAW IN RSA
23 June 2015
Congress of the People readily accepts that the system of referrals to the ICC is discriminatory. But, is the International Criminal Court “dangerous" as Gwede Mantashe is declaring and should South Africa withdraw from it? To whom is it so dangerous?
Gwede Mantashe is a prospective presidential candidate who could very well succeed Zuma. Will he damage South Africa even more than the present incumbent if he should become president? By his argument, we should not fix an ailing institution but get out of. If the AU continues to fail the people of Africa, will Mantashe demand that we should do the same on the grounds that it too is not “what was envisioned”. For Gwede the ICC “ is a tool in the hands of the powerful to destroy the weak”. Who exactly did the ICC destroy?
When South Africa agreed to domesticate the Rome Statute into our law, it did so out of the confidence that our country will always value human rights values and democracy. Our leaders had no fear at the time of signing that they would ever have to answer charges of genocide, war crimes or mass human rights abuse. Our leaders of the time had moral conviction and the foresight to support an International Criminal Court for the betterment and security of the people of South Africa. We thus gave to ourselves an ironclad guarantee that no leader would ever perpetrate human rights abuses on any group of people in our country.
Todays’ ruling party is no longer sure about that and it is fearful of the ICC. Mantashe, in particular, has a pathological dislike for judicial processes that interrogate political decisions. The ruling party goes along with him in accepting that “there is a drive in sections of the judiciary to create chaos for governance”. It is utterly ridiculous and totally bizarre to imagine that judges can do anything like that. They do not drive anything, least of all any kind of chaos for governance. The ruling party does that.
Mantashe without any justification casts aspersions on the Western Cape High Court and the Northern Gauteng High Court. He recklessly and mindlessly accuses them of engaging in a “narrative (that) is totally negative” and which “create” contradiction. He and his party must appeal judgments they do not like. President Zuma is a master at that. Mantashe should respect the independence of the judiciary and interrogate each judgment rather than attack the courts themselves.
From Mantashe’s statement we begin to understand why the government subverted the ruling of the High Court and allowed Al-Bashir to flee the country. The courts, according to Mantashe, wanted to create “chaos for governance” and the ruling party would have none of that.
We disagree with Mantashe’s unwarranted condemnation of the two high courts. However, agree fully with former Constitutional Court justice Johann Kriegler that “Attacks on the judiciary is in no one’s interest – not in the country’s interest and not the ruling party’s interest.” COPE wishes that other jurists and activists will speak up as well before the ruling party’s mischievous narrative takes hold.
The Public Protector and the Judiciary are under attack because they rigorously uphold the law. The ruling party is often on the receiving side because it frequently transgresses the law and continuously weakens the rule of law.
COPE warned about this from 2008. Today, therefore, we are more resolved than ever, to defend Chapter Nine Institutions and the Judiciary from the ruling party onslaught against them. We must remember what Hitler did in Germany and never allow the attrition of law by a ruling party to go unchallenged. It is not the ICC that is dangerous but Mantashe and the ruling party. They are extremely dangerous to the continuation of the rule of law in a constitutional dispensation.
Statement issued by Dennis Bloem, COPE spokesperson, June 23 2015
