Madam Speaker, I beg to move that this House unreservedly condemns the five-year suspended sentence imposed on Nicholas Steyn for the slaying of six-month-old Angelina Zwane on his Benoni farm.
Madam Speaker, it is conventional wisdom, in parliamentary democracies, that the executive and the legislature do not normally “interfere” with the judiciary.
The executive formulates legislation, which it then presents to the legislature to pass into law. Once the legislation becomes law, it is for the judiciary to interpret it. If the executive and the legislature do not like the interpretation given by the judiciary, they can amend the law. But they should not interfere with the judiciary in the normal performance of its functions.
Madam Speaker, I should therefore not be putting forward a motion of this sort before the House. But I did qualify my statement by saying that interference with the judiciary should not occur “in the normal performance” of its functions. The “normal performance” by the judiciary of its functions, Madam Speaker, enjoins judges and magistrates to abide by their oath of office, which orders them to dispense justice impartially to all and sundry, without fear or favour.
Madam Speaker, impartial justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done. “Seen” by whom, it may be asked. It must be “seen” by the right-thinking people of this country, who constitute the majority.
We do not need a referendum – nay, not even an opinion poll – to establish that the great majority of people in this country, be they white, brown or black, do see the judgment in the Steyn case as not only biased, partial and flawed, but also rotten and racist to boot.
Worst of all, the majority of people see it as a symbolic, perhaps defiant, act that seeks overtly to confirm that the terrible racist past that many of us assumed had been buried in this country, through our efforts at achieving reconciliation, is not only alive, but kicking. And it is sitting loftily ensconced behind many a magistrate or judge’s bench, taking instructions from Malan- Strijdom-Botha.
Madam Speaker, unusual acts demand unusual measures. Therefore if we in this House, conscious though we are of the need for the separation of powers to continue to operate, allow this matter to pass without condemnation from us, we would be endorsing the magistrate’s act of racist infamy.
And by our omission, we shall send a signal to every verkrampte (conservative) official hiding behind an office of public trust that it is all right to continue to act as if the murderous apartheid regime were still extant.
It is our duty, as the elected representatives of the people, to keep watch over the health of our act of political settlement. None of us in this House, nor indeed in any branch of our government, should act in such a way as to create extreme cynicism in our population.
If that were to happen, the great amount of work which President Nelson Mandela, FW de Klerk, Cyril Ramaphosa and a host of other indefatigable negotiators put into bringing about our act of settlement would have been rendered valueless.
People would ask themselves: “What is the use of a political settlement if it allows a white man to take pot shots at an 11-year-old girl and the six-month-old baby on her back, as if they were pheasants or wild guinea fowl?”
And, Madam Speaker – I choose my words carefully – asking that question may not be far removed from thinking of going back to dig for that buried AK-47.
That is why I urge this House to make its own voice heard about this affair. The chief justice and his advisers might want to look at the rules regarding miscarriage of justice, to see whether the chief justice could call for the “record” of the case to be brought to him, so that he can take steps to amend, publicly, any illegality the magistrate might have committed.
The Ministry of Justice might also carry out its own investigations about the way the police gathered and presented evidence in the case. Here again, if they do find that racism, partiality or incompetence, played a part in the proceedings, they ought to take a very severe view of the officials concerned, and publicise any punishment imposed on them. Public confidence in the judicial system demands nothing less.
But whatever is done elsewhere, it behoves us, in this House, to make our condemnation heard. This does not infringe the sub judice rule, Madam Speaker. Even if it did, I would crave your indulgence to set it aside and allow this debate, because of the utmost importance of the matter.
For my part, I hereby give notice that if this matter is not addressed in a manner satisfactory to me and the countless Africans – both within and outside South Africa – whose efforts got us elected into this House, I shall bring a motion in future to this House, urging the House to reduce to R1 the annual budget of the Ministry of Justice.
This will be on the grounds that its officials are not dispensing fair justice to the people whose taxes pay for those estimates.
When magistrates and judges are made to realise that their fabulous lifestyle is paid for by people like the mother of the six- month-old baby – a bereaved mother who is forced, by poverty, to continue to work for the family that treated her baby like a wild fowl – then maybe they will strive to understand the country and the world in which they live.
Madam Speaker, I beg to move.