TUESDAY, 12.00NOON:
THE court application by the SA Rugby Football Union to pre-empt a judicial commission of inquiry into its affairs got off to a fiery start in the Pretoria High Court on Monday when Sarfu lawyers attacked President Nelson Mandela’s approval of the commission.
Senior advocate Mike Maritz, representing Sarfu, the Gauteng Lions, Mpumalanga Rugby Union and Sarfu president Dr Louis Luyt, argued that Mandela had not applied his mind to the matter and had merely rubber-stamped a decision by Sports Minister Steve Tshwete. He proposed that a judicial commission of inquiry into rugby is flouting the constitution as President Nelson Mandela had not consulted with the deputy president as is required.
Most of Monday’s argument focused on a widely publicised press statement from August 1997 that stated Tshwete had been granted permission by Mandela to set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the state of rugby in South Africa. The president has said, however, that he only commissioned the inquiry in September.
Sarfu on Monday made two urgent applications: a court order to force Tshwete and Sport Director-General Mthobi Tyamzashe to reveal all press statements made by them in August 1997, and that the source of an August television broadcast claiming President Mandela had given Tshwete “carte blanche” to investigate rugby in South Africa be revealed.
Wim Trengrove, senior councel for Tshwete and Mandela, dismissed the claims against the president as “insulting, absurd, unfounded and irresponsible”.