THE public backing Minister of Justice Dullah Omar has given to Dr Allan Boesak in advance of his trial on criminal charges is a subject on which it is easy to pontificate.
The issue at stake is within the grasp of a schoolchild. The minister of justice, who carries a responsibility for the impartiality of the judicial system, has no business identifying himself in public with an accused. The argument that he was doing so in his personal capacity, or wearing an African National Congress hat, holds no water.
If he wanted to console a friend or colleague who is going through a personal ordeal, he should have done so privately. In public he is minister of justice and his actions and pronouncements must inevitably be seen in that context.
It is a case of Caesar’s wife. And if in this instance Caesar, in the person of Nelson Mandela, was responsible for encouraging Omar into the blunder, then it was the minister’s duty to reproach the president for his failure to appreciate the principle involved.
But in the South African context the issue goes beyond principle or politics, and it is in that arena that Omar deserves a further lambasting. South Africa has a Constitution which is dangerously in advance of the population. It is, for example, built around a highly refined mechanism aimed at ensuring a delicate balance between the rights of the government and the governed.
But recent market research showed more than a quarter of the population would have no truck with such niceties, and would prefer to be subject to a one-party state. More than 60% of the population, the same research shows, see no role for an opposition party.
This abyss between popular sentiment and the sophisticated perspectives of the ruling elite – attributable in large part to Bantu education – means the country is skating on thin ice where the maintenance of our constitutional values is concerned.
It is to be hoped that Omar supports those values. But if he wants to see them survive, he would do better if he avoided showing public contempt for them.