anc chief hits back at his critics 
09 July 2008

This comes after former ANC and South African Communist Party leader Raymond Suttner wrote in Business Day yesterday that Mantashe “should have known better” than to attack SA’s highest court. Mantashe said: “The holier than thou critics of the ANC tended to think that any critical view on the behaviour of judges constituted an attack on the judiciary as if judges have unlimited rights to trample on individual rights or rights of other institutions.”

The latest row over the judiciary follows the Constitutional Court complaint against Cape Judge President John Hlohpe for allegedly trying to improperly influence two Constitutional Court judges in matters relating to ANC president Jacob Zuma before the court.

Mantashe said: “When a judge attacks the ANC at a party, which is a private function, we are told he has the right to express his view and should enjoy the freedom to express himself. However, according to this logic the ANC does not enjoy the same freedom when it criticises the behaviour of the same judge or judges.”  The ANC and Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke had a run in this year when the judge commented publicly on the ANC’s leadership change at its elective conference last year.

Mantashe said Suttner had undermined a ruling of a court judge in a Zuma matter. He concluded Suttner “is taking me to task for my supposed attack” on the Constitutional Court. “However, in his attempt to point out my shortcomings he commits a grave error. In fact, Suttner casts aspersions on the judgment in the rape case against Zuma, saying that he escaped conviction because the judge in the case was a sexist,” Mantashe said.   “So again Suttner can attack the outcome of a court ruling and the behaviour of a high court judge, but is not guilty of undermining the judiciary. This selective approach to our institutions and agencies is what has dumped the country into the problem in the first place.”

Mantashe reaffirmed his criticism of the Constitutional Court’s handling of its complaint against Hlophe. “Instead of dealing with the alleged misconduct of a judge in the internal disciplinary processes the whole case was put in the public domain even before the (Judicial Service Commission) received the complaint.  “As a sequel to this strange handling of the Hlophe case, the submission of the Constitu- tional Court and responding affidavit of the accused judge became the subject of public debate.

In the debate, the focus shifted from Hlophe to Zuma. With pending cases before the honourable court relating to Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial this behaviour was interpreted as not just strange but as preparing society for the ultimate pouncing of Zuma.”

The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry yesterday expressed concern at “disputes that threaten to undermine the independence, impartiality and dignity of the judicial system and its associated institutions”.

Karima Brown, www.businessday.co.za