WATCH: Malema makes apartheid prosecutor apologise during JSC interview

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema forced advocate JJ Strijdom to say apologies for the role he played as a prosecutor during apartheid, while being interviewed for a position on the bench of the Gauteng High Court by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

Strijdom was an apartheid-era prosecutor and magistrate in the 1980s.

The EFF firebrand asked Strijdom to take up the opportunity to say sorry “if you’re so willing”.

“I apologise that I was part of the apartheid system, that I was a part of the apartheid laws, that we applied those laws and that I was one of the instruments to apply that law,” said Strijdom.

Malema responded with an abrupt “thank you”.

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Strijdom faced similar questions when he was interviewed by the JSC in 2018.

Strijdom admitted to prosecuting people that had taken part in riots or assembled unlawfully, but when South Africa gained democracy he said he started seeing things from a different perspective.

“I came to the view that things must change. We must all change for a better South Africa.”

Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) Judge Mahomed Navsa asked Strijdom about young children that were given “vicious” sentences for taking part in anti-apartheid protests.

“You had a job to do… If people broke the law, you had to prosecute them,” said Strijdom.

“You have regret about what happened in the past, but there’s nothing I can change about that now.”

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On Monday, former EFF chairperson advocate Dali Mpofu SC touched on a similar topic while interviewing advocate Alan Dodson SC as a candidate for the Constitutional Court bench.

Mpofu brought up the fact that Dodson is a white man.

“Nobody seems to be talking about that [Dodson’s race]. That’s the elephant in the room,” Mpofu said.

Dodson replied: “There’s not much I can do about the fact that I’m white and there’s not much I can do about the fact that I’m male. And I don’t want to sound soppy but to use words that are not mine: I am an African … Every cell and fibre of my body is made from the African soil. I haven’t relied on my whiteness to take advantage.”

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