Threats To Justice

Jeremy Gordin knows a lot about the Zuma rape case. On the same day that the complainant contacted the Sunday Times last November, she also contacted Gordin and told him that it was not true that Jacob Zuma had raped her, and that he could print her name. What she said to him then was: "I have no idea where these stories come from. My family have long been friends with Zuma and I often stay [at his home]. And I have repeatedly said that none of this has happened to me". Gordin has attended the trial throughout. He is not exactly “pro-Zuma”. His position is: Let the trial proceed to its end. In the linked article today he knocks down some of the loose statements that have been made outside the court, particularly by the over-enthusiastic anti-rape campaigners who have already concluded that Zuma is guilty. These latter now appear to include the “Chapter Nine” Commission for Gender Equality and Human Rights Commission as well as the Public Protector. The HRC’s Jody Kollapen thinks: “we simply take for granted what a fair trial means” (see linked). This is an absurd statement. A huge part of the population and its representative organisations have been campaigning for years for the principle that all should be held innocent until proved guilty in a proper court of law, and that a person must “have his day in court”. The HRC was obviously not listening. Perhaps Mr Kollapen will announce on Human Rights Day (Tuesday) that he now thinks all that court stuff is out of date. And is to be replaced by what? Trial by Dinner Party? Trial by Ordeal, with Scorpions? If the three constitutional “Chapter Nine” institutions attempt to make a concerted intervention in court proceedings during a trial they could cause a constitutional crisis. The constitutional court judges, as we know, think there are principles of which they are the guardians, and which are higher than the people’s will. We have managed to live with this legal fiction up to now. But if the constitution’s institutions turn against the courts and begin to consume the very fabric of the law itself, then the constitutionalist game is up. It has reached its “reductio ad absurdum”. As for the Scorpions/NPA: Oh dear! What a sorry spectacle is their paid hack Makhosini Nkosi, a man who turned his journalist’s coat to become a mercenary for the goggas, and now dissembles, blusters and threatens on their behalf against elected officials of democratic institutions. See the last sentence of the linked article. Nkosi “will no longer brook”, he says. And what is it he is going to do with his brooks off, to our good comrade David Masondo? Raid his humble dwelling and confiscate his computer, his TV and his sound system? Or make an appointment to talk, turn up with TV crews, handcuff him in front of the cameras and take him away in a screaming cop-car, only to release him again when out of sight? It is high time the NPA/Scorpions were disbanded. They are a public disgrace. Links: Let tragedy not obscure sight of justice, Gordin, Sindy (1116 words) Commissions to interfere with Zuma trial, da Costa, Sindy (573 words) Paid Hack Nkosi threatens YCL elected Chairperson Masondo (895 words)