Lesley Cowling and Chris Louw
QUESTIONS about the state’s funding of General Lothar Neethling’s defamation case against the Weekly Mail & Guardian are to be raised in parliament.
ANC MP Dave Dalling has given notice that he wants Minister of Safety and Security Sidney Mufamadi to reveal the total cost to the state of Neethling’s litigation so far, as well as the projected cost for the future.
Dalling also wants to know whether it is the intention to continue the funding, and if so, what the reasons are, on what basis it will be done and subject to what conditions.
The questions reflect concerns about state funding of cases inherited from the previous dispensation.
Brian Currin of Lawyers for Human Rights said this week there should be a review of cases handled by the state attorney’s office. “In the past, politics influenced the decisions of the office, many of which were based on an `us and them’ mentality,” he said.
Another human rights lawyer said the continued support by the state attorney’s office for the Neethling case and its financing of ex-Vlakplaas commander Eugene de Kock’s bail application was puzzling, especially as the office had made major changes in its approach, briefing a much wider range of advocates and giving a lot of work to the “black bar”.
But a state attorney in the Pretoria office said nothing had changed since the elections in the running of the department. “The same decisions we would have made last year we make now.”
DP MP Tony Leon said guidelines needed to be established in the Department of Justice for the handling of cases. He disagreed with the characterisation of the state attorney’s office as “dragging its feet”, saying the facts indicated it had been better prepared than other departments for the transition.
Minister of Justice Dullah Omar has been reported as saying the department is “looking into the matter” and has not yet responded to queries from the WM&G.
Dalling’s questions on the Neethling case will probably only be dealt with after the parliamentary recess ends in mid-October.