Ronald Lamola tweeted the following: “We will do our best for the country. Let justice be done though heavens may fall.”
For those who are not yet sure who Lamola is, he is the newly appointed minister of justice and correctional services.
He is part of our President’s reshuffled Cabinet, which caused several frowns and cheers, such as naming Patricia de Lille as the new minister of public works and infrastructure, and retaining Pravin Gordhan to beat the state-owned enterprises into shape.
The official opposition naturally lambasted the new Cabinet, which is to be expected as they are called on to oppose.
While the Cabinet does not offer much interesting food for thought, you have to wonder what Lamola meant when he spoke about justice being done till the heavens fall.
Interestingly, if you do a bit of research, it appears that this statement is called the law of freedom in some writings.
It has been used a number of times in history, within different contexts, and does not come from any classical source.
It was used apparently in May 1772, when Lord Mansfield, chief justice of the court of the king’s bench in England, heard preliminary arguments in the case of James Somerset, a Virginia slave who claimed his freedom under English common law.
The statement basically means the judge must administer justice according to the law, whatever the consequences might be. Thus it makes sense that Lamola said what he said because he is a qualified and accomplished lawyer.
So with all of this insight, the question remains: Will we thus see justice prevail regardless of consequences? One can refer to the Zondo Commission into state capture, where a plethora of politicians and business people, it seems, have been implicated in corruption.
Have we seen any justice yet? Sadly not, even though if justice were to be done, it would have major repercussions, even impacting some who have taken their place in the new Cabinet.
De Lille was also talking about justice when she tweeted after her appointment: “I have fought for justice in our country for more than 40 years and have no plans to give up fighting.” Who really knows what she is fighting. Hopefully, corruption and incompetence.
The reality is that many South Africans are still waiting for some kind of justice because so many have been victims of crime in all its brutal forms and shapes, yet the perpetrators have never been caught.
At least someone was arrested for the senseless murder of the schoolteacher in Boksburg. Let us pray for justice to reign supreme.
And what about the couple who were brutally murdered at the Putfontein off-ramp? They were young, full of life, yet cut down for no apparent reason. Hate prevailed, yet where is the justice? We won’t even mention all the farm murders, which continue week in and week out. The heavens are raining blood, and, sadly, there is no justice for so many families and loved ones.
The law exists to ensure that this country does not fall deeper into anarchy, yet so often we have seen in Boksburg how the community metes out justice without regard for the consequences.
Maybe this is the abyss the country is facing as we teeter on the edge of utter rebellion. After all, people are so sick and tired of all the crime and corruption.
If you listen carefully, the scream for justice echoes in every city and town, across the valleys and mountains, and it doesn’t really care any more about the consequences.
Law and order should start at the top, but for a long time, sadly, it seems as if the fear of consequences has outweighed the pursuit of justice.
We can only hope that justice will indeed prevail until the heavens fall, for then we can cling with an icy grip to some sense of humanity in the midst of so much madness and cruelty.
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