Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma will oppose a high court bid to overturn her decision on alleged sex-pest ambassador Norman Mashabane, her spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said on Wednesday.
He was responding to the Public Servants’ Association (PSA), which said it had received notice from the state attorney that both the minister and Mashabane were withdrawing their opposition, and would abide by the court’s decision.
Mamoepa said the minister’s lawyers would in fact go to court and argue the case.
”That statement that she will not oppose refers to the fact that should the court find against her, she will respect and abide by such decision,” Mamoepa said. ”She will not oppose the decision of the court.”
However, PSA deputy general manager Manie de Clercq said this was not what the letter said. ”The letter clearly says the first and second respondent withdraw their notice of opposition,” he said. ”That can not be [subject to] misinterpretation.”
He said he did not have a date for the hearing, but according to the PSA’s lawyer it would definitely be before June 1.
The PSA and Department of Foreign Affairs employee Lara Swart have asked the Pretoria High Court to overturn the minister’s 2004 decision to uphold Mashabane’s appeal after disciplinary hearings found him guilty on 22 sexual-harassment charges.
At the time he was ambassador to Indonesia, where Swart, one of several complainants, was stationed.
Mashabane was found guilty at an initial hearing in 2001 on a battery of charges that included stroking the buttocks of an employee, molesting a staff member in a lift and making suggestive motions with his tongue to another. The panel recommended he be fired, but he appealed the judgment and was allowed to continue in his post pending the outcome.
In June 2003 another charge was laid against him, and he was again found guilty.
The findings were reversed by Dlamini-Zuma, acting as the appeal authority, who suggested that Mashabane was being dragged through the mud for exposing motor-vehicle fraud at the embassy.
De Clercq said the PSA regarded the notice of withdrawal as a ”preliminary victory”, and an indication that Dlamini-Zuma realised she might have made a mistake by condoning Mashabane’s appeal.
”Obviously one must understand that a judge must apply his mind. One needs to respect the impartiality,” he said.
However, this decision would now be based only on the PSA papers. The high court case has taken more than a year to get to this point.
Swart and the PSA said in their court papers that the minister had acted arbitrarily and made decisions that were not rationally connected to the information before her. They said her decision was a violation of the right to equal protection under the law and non-discrimination on the grounds of gender in terms of the Constitution.
Mashabane’s contract expired at the end of 2004, and he returned to South Africa. He is understood to be living in Limpopo, where his wife Maite Nkoane-Mashabane is the provincial minister for local government and housing.
The high court ruling is expected to clear the way for probes by the commission on gender equality and the public protector, which were suspended pending the outcome of the hearing. — Sapa