Like the National Party (NP) under apartheid, the African National Congress (ANC) was trying to take control of the courts through judicial appointments, Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the University of the Witwatersrand, he said: ”The truth is that the ANC is using the rhetoric of transformation to push through judicial appointees that are loyal to its political views.”
Some encroachments on judicial independence were full-frontal and blatant, while others were more opaque and oblique.
”Both the battering ram approach and the slow sabotage are to be found in the serried ranks of the ANC,” Leon said.
Despite public pronouncements by ANC leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki, on the judiciary’s independence, ”the ANC is trying to take control of the courts through the process of judicial appointments”.
According to the Constitution, judges are appointed by the president in consultation with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), but the latter was stacked in favour of party politicians.
”This leaves room for abuse, and the ANC has taken advantage of every loophole it can,” Leon said.
While at least three of the six members of the National Assembly on the JSC had to be members of opposition parties, the ANC also picked these representatives.
”As a result — and with respect to the judicial officers who are involved — JSC meetings are virtually ANC caucus meetings in another guise,” Leon said.
To gain extra political leverage, the government was launching an attack on the credibility of the judiciary.
At the ANC’s Stellenbosch conference, Mbeki had warned the judicial system was lagging behind the rest of the country in ”transformation”.
This was recently echoed in Parliament by senior ANC MP and National Assembly justice committee chairman Johnny de Lange.
He repeated the president’s view that unless transformation happened more rapidly ”the credibility of the judicial system will suffer”.
However, the composition of the courts was far more representative than ever before, Leon said.
”The truth is that the ANC is using the rhetoric of transformation to push through judicial appointees that are loyal to its political views.”
Leon said the ANC’s public statements on issues relating to the Zimbabwean courts revealed its true attitude towards judicial independence.
”The fact that the ANC’s attack on the independence of the judiciary in South Africa is subtle and indirect is no reason for comfort.”
Recent history had shown that the ANC did not like judicial institutions that it did not control, he said.
That is why the ANC challenged the credibility of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when the party was called to account for its own human rights abuses.
The ANC also blocked advocate Willem Heath from leading an independent investigation into corruption in the multibillion-rand arms deal, Leon said.
”Increasingly, public investigative offices such as the Public Protector and the Director of Public Prosecutions — which are meant to be headed by people of unimpeachable independence and genuine disinterest –consist of ANC politicians playing a game of musical chairs.”
Leon accused the government of paying lip service to the principle of an independent judiciary.
”Ideally, the ANC wants an obedient judiciary, stacked with judges that are politically useful. As PW Botha used Judge George Munnik to punish Chris Ball of Barclays Bank for financing an advertisement for the ANC, so the ANC-New National Party coalition tried to use Judge Siraj Desai to find evidence of financial malfeasance in the DA-none of which turned up, in the end.”
That was why the ANC wanted ”transformation” to be speeded up in the judiciary, even though it was already happening as fast as it could given the pool of qualified candidates, Leon said.
”It must be used to storm the courts and put as many ANC sympathisers on the bench as possible.” – Sapa