NATIONAL Party MPs gave a fresh fillip this week to=20 their long and deserved reputation for hypocrisy by=20 their demands for a referendum on capital punishment.=20 As one of the parties to South Africa’s political=20 settlement the Nats can hardly fail to be aware that=20 there is a division of constitutional powers which puts=20 the judiciary beyond the opinions of the electorate. To=20 give the electorate the impression that a judgment of=20 the Constitutional Court can be overturned by a popular=20 vote is not only misleading, but strikes at the=20 foundations of the very regstaat for which the=20 Nationalists themselves campaigned.=20
That part of the electorate scared by predictions from=20 the “hang-them-high” brigade that the abolition of=20 capital punishment heralds anarchy may take some=20 comfort, as well as deriving some amusement, from a=20 tale of an executioner hoist by his own petard.=20
The story is told in the judgment of Justice Albie=20 Sachs who recounts how, when Britain took over the Cape=20 Colony from the Dutch, the British did away with the=20 gruesome tortures which used to accompany capital=20 punishment — breaking on the wheel and such-like — in=20 favour of straightforward hanging.=20
The reform caused an uproar, the “tear-them-to-pieces”=20 brigade insisting that it heralded anarchy. The public=20 executioner was so distressed, Judge Sachs recalls,=20 that he hanged himself.