In a piece titled No, there is no duty on us to presume someone is innocent until proven guilty[1] on his blog Constitutionally Speaking, Prof. Pierre de Vos shows convincingly that the principle only holds true for the justice system.
If we’d have to wait eight years (and counting) for the courts to pronounce on the matter, as in the case of the infamous 783 charges brought against President Zuma,[2] the issue would probably be largely academic by then.
That’s obviously not how democracy works. The best a democrat can do is to weigh up the evidence with an open mind and then reach a conclusion on the balance of probabilities, exactly as Prof. De Vos proposes.
And in the case of state capture, I feel comfortable that the balance of probabilities point overwhelmingly to state capture. The sheer volume of allegations that come tumbling out of the closet at the moment is an indication that at the very least, there’s a huge screw loose.
Current Energy Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, speaking at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban earlier this year. Credit: World Economic Forum / Greg Beadle
And it’s not as if there’s no basis for those allegations. The news of the sale of the strategic fuel stock that I’ve mentioned in the previous part, for example, comes from a public statement by the current Energy minister, supposedly once again with the tacit approval of the president (he could not have missed her widely-reported admission of wrong-doing by her predecessor). That’s basically straight from the horse’s mouth. The Molefe facts that I’ve laid out are also not disputed, as I’ve mentioned.
And the chances that the leaked emails are not authentic are negligible, as many commentators have pointed out: the sheer volume alone makes it highly unlikely, and the authenticity of some have been confirmed by high-profile individuals like Ministers Malusi Gigaba[3] and Ayanda Dlolo,[4], and by presidential advisor Lakela Kaunda,[5] who definitely don’t have an interest in doing so – quite the opposite.
But let’s use something on which the courts did pronounce: irregular high-level appointments to key government institutions and parastatals like the Hawks, the National Prosecuting Authority and the SABC.
Patently each of the appointments which have been reversed by the courts is a clear sign of capture. Because in each case, these appointees were found, in one way or another, to have been unfit to serve the interests of the South African public they were ostensibly appointed to serve.
And the appointers knew beforehand about the problems: often the appointments were made in the face of opposition from a variety of civil society and political players on the very basis of those problems. (Among them the Ginwala Commission, appointed by the ANC government, in the case of former National Director of Public Prosecutions, Menzi Simelane.[6])
And the judgements were obviously not the first step in the process either. They were made after often protracted legal battles over what should have been clear to anyone from the start, in case after case: that these appointees were not fit to serve the interests of the South African people.
Clearly that was not what they had been appointed for.
In Part 2.3, the last of the sub-sections of Part 2, I look at whether we are really that much more captured than other democracies.
Or go back to Part 2.
Footnotes
Click on the footnote number to go back to where you were.
[1] http://constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/no-there-is-no-duty-on-us-to-presume-someone-is-innocent-until-proven-guilty
[2] Jacob Zuma ‘should’ face 783 criminal charges, declares South African court
[3] http://www.sundayworld.co.za/news/2017/06/13/malusi-gigaba-confirms-gupta-citizenship-letter-is-authentic—and-says-approval-was-lawful
[4] Leaked emails: Dlodlo’s Dubai trip ‘courtesy of the Guptas’
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