If African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma is serious about the rule of law, says Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, he must accept the decision of the prosecutors to appeal the ruling of Judge Chris Nicholson and instruct his party to do the same.
Secondly, Zille wrote on Friday in her online newsletter SA Today, Zuma must abandon his party’s cadre deployment policy.
”In deploying cadres to supposedly independent state institutions, the ANC has subordinated these institutions to its own political agenda,” she said. ”Once factionalism became rife within the ruling party, it was inevitable that cadres would use the institutions they led to fight battles on behalf of their political masters and persecute their political opponents.”
Zille pointed out that since Nicholson presented his verdict last Friday, Zuma has suddenly become a staunch supporter of the courts’ role in promoting constitutional democracy.
On Monday, she said, he told an audience: ”Our faith in the judiciary has … been given a further boost by the ruling,” and that the ”judgement has re-emphasised the independence of the judiciary and the critical role it plays in interpreting our Constitution”.
She said it is hypocritical of the ANC and its alliance partners to praise Nicholson’s ruling and then to lambaste the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) decision to appeal it.
”The NPA is fully within its rights to appeal the verdict — that is the due process of law — and Zuma has himself had recourse to the appeals mechanism on several occasions during his trial,” she said.
”Moreover, if there is a prima facie case against Zuma, the NPA is legally bound to explore every legal avenue to ensure justice is done. That is what the rule of law requires, and this is what the Nicholson judgement also emphasised.”
She continued that cadre deployment has completely undermined the independence of the country’s constitutional institutions, whose very role it is to limit the ruling party’s power and guard against the abuse of that power.
”It is time for the cadre deployment policy to be discarded once and for all, and Zuma must set the ball in motion,” she said.
”But he is unlikely to do so. Why would Zuma want an independent person as the national director of public prosecutions when he is facing allegations of 783 counts of bribery over 10 years involving R4,2-million?
”Zuma has done everything to avoid his day in court in order to gain the power of the Presidency. If he does become president, it is likely that he — more so than Thabo Mbeki — will abuse the office to protect and enrich himself and his clique. Cadre deployment is one of the key tools of abuse.”
Conviction rate
Meanwhile, the DA also said on Friday that the conviction rate for murder was 12,6% in 2007/08, quoting from the South African Police Service’s annual report.
Overall, the conviction rate for contact crimes was 19%, said DA safety and security spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard.
”It is difficult to know which is worse — the low conviction rates for serious crimes or the fact that 15 out of 20 crime categories have decreased conviction rates since 2006,” she said.
The conviction rate for attempted murder was 11,3% (down 0,59% from 2006), for rape 8,9% (down 0,07%), for house robbery 7,7% (down 1,72%) and for hijacking of cars 7,29% (down 2,36%).
The murder conviction rate of 12,6% was 0,82% lower than in 2006.
”The bottom line is that if people do not have faith that the crime they report will result in a conviction, they will simply not bother reporting crimes …
”We must see more resources and personnel allocated to the detective service, for without the capacity to investigate and solve crimes and refer credible cases to court for prosecution, we can never win the fight against crime,” said Kohler-Barnard. — I-Net Bridge, Sapa