WEDNESDAY, 2.30PM
THE National Party is to press ahead with its plan to take the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to court for a ruling on its accusations that the TRC has has been biased in its dealings with the party, NP justice representative Sheila Camerer said on Tuesday.
Camerer’s statement comes in the wake of last week’s ultimatum by the Nats demanding an apology from TRC chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the resignation of his deputy Dr Alex Boraine.
The Nat demands arise out of as press conference on May 15, following the NP’s second submission to the TRC. At the conference, Tutu said he found NP leader FW De Klerk’s assertion that he did not know about the havoc being wrought by his security forces “difficult to understand” because he had told him about it on a number of occasions, personally. In light of all the evidence of torture which had emerged before the TRC and in reports of human rights organisations throughout the apartheid era, Tutu said it was “unacceptable” for De Klerk to have suggested that it could have been mere propaganda.
When Tutu received the NP ulitimatum demanding a reply by June 4, he said he wanted to refer it to the next meeting of the full commission on June 19. The NP agreed to extend its deadline. However, in a subsequent letter, the party demanded an assurance that Tutu and Boraine would co-operate in having any ensuing court application decided as a matter of urgency — an undertaking the TRC refused to give.
In a letter to the TRC on Tuesday, the NP’s legal advisers said: “This utterly unreasonable conduct amounts to clear non-compliance with the reasonable condition on which our client agreed to the extension of time requested by you.”
The NP said it believes Tutu’s conduct was contrary to the provisions of the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act, which governed the TRC, to serve impartially and perform the duties without bias or prejudice.