Judiciary sending a strong message to government officials

Many of our ANC leaders seem to suffer from the “firepool syndrome” where they dream up a fantastical, illogical excuse and convince themselves that the public will believe it.

When their creative abilities desert them, or when they are in a more challenging arena such as a courtroom or before a commission of inquiry they suddenly have memory loss, duck and dive or just plain refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate them (we’re looking at you, here, Dudu Myeni).

The problem with our legal system is that it tends to view evidence or the lack of it in a very serious light.

So statements made there are not subject to later claims that people took the words out of context or they misunderstood.

One of the behaviours that our judiciary takes a dim view of is lying … as former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini is alleged to have done to no less a body than the Constitutional Court in the Sassa (South African Social Security Agency) grant payment fiasco in 2017.

Now, quite rightly, the former minister is being held accountable, in that she is being charged with perjury. Even the lesser charge, should she not be convicted of that, is still grave “giving false evidence” to a court.

The Constitutional Court slapped Dlamini with a hefty personal costs order which she only ended up
paying this year.

But that, clearly, is not the end of the saga, at least as far as a criminal justice system is concerned.

While Dlamini is yet to have her day in court on the perjury charge, the fact that she is being indicted, even three years later, is another indication that our judicial system is still in good health.

The message is clear: government officials will be held personally accountable for their conduct.