Whiff of something rotten

It’s not yet the full-blown stench that makes the stomach heave. It’s just an occasional malodorous whiff, subtly alerting us to something going off.

In this case, it’s the first signals that the most important aspect of South Africa’s post-apartheid democracy, an evenhanded and independent judicial system, is under toxic strain. A few rot spots are beginning to show.

It was the establishment of the so-called Chapter Nine institutions – particularly the office of the public protector (PP) and the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) – that held greatest promise in foiling any attack on democracy. That’s not how it is working out.

The PP had a moment of glory under Thuli Madonsela, ironically appointed by president Jacob Zuma, whose nemesis she would prove to be. But she was the exception.

Her predecessors were pliant stooges, the ja-baas refrain no less vomit-making when chanted to placate a majority government. The only memorable act by the first PP, Selby Baqwa, was to thwart the arms probe.

His successor, Lawrence Mushwana, was Zuma’s tool in the battle to avoid corruption charges. At the end of his dismal term, he slithered straight out of the PP’s office into the chairmanship of the SAHRC.

After Madonsela, SA got the poisonous Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who has proved to be more disastrous than anyone could have imagined. The travails of the PP’s office are echoed at the SAHRC.

For years, it has been criticised for its apparent race bias – its speedy and unambiguous findings against white-trash bigots, while dragging its heels on high-ranking black politicians and then doing intellectual contortions to exculpate them over threats of a future white genocide.

Last week, SAHRC legal head Buang Jones made some extraordinarily prejudicial statements about Springbok rugby player Eben Etzebeth, accused of a racial slur during a pub scuffle. Etzebeth is at present playing in the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

The SAHRC laid a hate speech charge against Etzebeth and Jones was deployed to represent the complainants. At a public meeting, Jones vowed to “set an example” of Etzebeth, whom he accused of “getting away with murder”, and demanded that Etzebeth should forthwith be recalled to face the music.

The Jones incident is worrying for several reasons. The SAHRC seems to be dumbfounded that people are appalled that its legal head effectively declares the subject of a complaint not only to be guilty of an offence that he has not yet appeared in court for, but also unspecified past offences, for which he has never been charged.

It means that the SAHRC simply doesn’t grasp a basic tenet of the law – innocent until proven guilty. Jones’ behaviour should bring into question how he got the job.

In this regard, the SAHRC is probably trusting on events to absolve it of prolonged embarrassment. No, not because he intends to resign in belated shame. It’s because like Mushwana, Jones is a player in the institutionally incestuous world of endless cadre rotation for the serially useless, and has been nominated for the position of deputy public protector. Nothing much changes.

William Saunderson-Meyer.

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