IFP calls justice minister 'a sadist'
President Thabo Mbeki needs to urgently intervene to stop Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla’s “sadistic games”, Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) chief whip Koos van der Merwe said on Wednesday.
“The minister of justice can best be described as a sadist,” he said in a statement.
The follows Mabandla’s application to the Supreme Court of Appeal to appeal against a finding by the Pretoria High Court that she failed to perform her function as required by section 237 of the Constitution by not considering 384 applications for pardon by prisoners.
“It is clear that she is a sadist. She has no compassion at all for the 384 prisoners who have been waiting on her for almost five years to process their applications for pardon.
“She has now been found guilty by the [South African] Human Rights Commission of violating the human rights of those prisoners and by the Pretoria High Court of not doing her duty,” he said.
Mabandla had initially defended the high court case of the 384 prisoners on purely technical grounds.
She admitted that the minister of justice had been preparing applications for presidential pardons for many years, but said there was no provision in the Constitution compelling her to do so.
“Therefore nobody can force her to do her work.
“She is not only litigating on purely technical grounds at the cost of the taxpayer, but does not care a damn for 384 prisoners who have been languishing in prison for almost five years.
“She is now an official embarrassment to the judiciary, the African National Congress and South Africa.”
Van der Merwe called on Mbeki to urgently intervene to end her “continuous violation of the human rights” of those 384 prisoners and instruct her to immediately “stop her sadistic games”, accept the ruling of the Pretoria High Court and attend to the 384 applications on an extremely urgent basis.—Sapa
