A much-admired Harvard professor once said, when faculty evaluations were instituted there: ‘But who can possibly examine me?†We need the Scorpions precisely because that sort of arrogance must be examined.
Organised crime often requires the sanction of the powers-that-be to operate unhindered. Constant examination and an impartial eye on power to prevent its abuse is a fundamental constitutional obligation.
In any society the police and their masters must have watchdogs to ensure that they are protecting our interests and not their own. This simple thought — that a government exists to serve its constituency (us) — seems woefully absent in our common understanding of democracy and what privileges it confers on the citizens of our country.
Since I filed an urgent interdict with the high court to prevent the disbanding of the Scorpions, the media have been calling me a David to government’s Goliath. In fact, in a democracy we are the Goliath and our government is David. Government serves at our pleasure.
This is not a party-political matter for me; instead, I am guided by economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek, who feared the rule of special interests overwhelming the common interest. This applies not only to governments but to our increasingly powerful Âglobal businesses, evidenced by wars fought for oil and aspects of the perceived global food shortage.
Hayek yearned for, and many of us in South Africa fought for, a society based on freedom of association and exchange according to the rule of law. We who were repulsed or oppressed or intimidated by the apartheid government wanted to move control of society away from the whim of government.
Without the Scorpions, crime and corruption — rather than our freedoms — will flourish. According to a German law professor, Dr Loammi Wolf, the first dominoes to fall in failed states are always those of the police, state security, independent prosecution and an independent judiciary.
We would hope, rather, that Âgovernment would celebrate the successes of the Scorpions since their inception in 2001 — they have been significantly more effective than the South African Police Service, with conviction rates averaging 85% between 2004 and 2008, compared with the SAPS’s 27% (without figures for 2007/08). Disbanding the Scorpions by political fiat also undermines the constitutionally entrenched principle of Parliament’s sovereignty.
Government is the guardian of public money — all those taxes they painfully collect from us each year — and yet its organisations charged with doing so, namely Scopa, the Public Protector, the Auditor General and finally the Scorpions have been (or are about to be) subverted by political meddling.
It costs us dearly when bullies become legitimised in the form of crime bosses and crooked politicians. To complicate matters we have security companies that need high levels of crime to make a profit. When these opposite sides join in a corrupt relationship to sustain criminal activity we face the wholesale destruction of liberty and safety.
The Scorpions have given me hope by unearthing some dastardly deeds perpetrated by the bullies costing our country so dearly. They should serve as model for the SAPS to emulate rather than subsume, so that every individual in society can, without fear, intimidation or molestation, shout: ‘I am free to pursue my dreams.â€
We have one of the finest Constitutions in the world, but it is only as strong as the people defending it.
Hugh Glenister is a businessman and citizen