Al-Bashir: Court confirms that SA Government violated the law

24 June 2015

Today’s court ruling by Judge President Dunstan Mlambo confirmed the fact that the South African Government violated the law by ignoring a court order, which instructed authorities to ensure that Sudanese President Omar Al-bashir remain in the country.

This is another clear example of President Jacob Zuma and the ANC-led government’s utter disdain for judicial authority as espoused by the highest law of the land – the Constitution. In order to build a fair society all must be equal before the law and the law must be respected by all citizens and institutions.

All eyes are now on the new National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Adv. Shaun Abrahams, who has been ordered, through today’s judgment, “to consider whether criminal proceedings are appropriate.” This will be the NDPP’s first test of prosecuting without fear or favour, even when it involves the highest office in the land.

This episode will forever represent President Zuma and the ANC’s abandonment of constitutionalism and moral leadership, where the President and his government conspired to bow to the whims of a wanted warlord and human rights violator.

This government did not merely lift its middle finger to its international obligations, in defiance of section 231(4) of the Constitution, it did so to our own Courts.

The Democratic Alliance will continue to work in earnest for the people of South Africa to ensure that human rights take their rightful place as the bedrock of the country’s foreign policy and that the laws of the land are upheld.

Statement issued by James Selfe MP, Chairperson of the DA’s Federal Executive, June 24 2015