13 January 2009
JUDGE Louis Harms, the judge who delivered the judgment in the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA's) appeal case against Judge Chris Nicholson's finding in the case against African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma is a self-confessed former Broederbond member.
A respected judge, Harms was one of the most experienced judges on the bench yesterday as he has been a Supreme Court of Appeal judge for 15 years.
In 1990, Harms chaired a controversial commission that found no evidence to support the allegations of the existence of death squads during the apartheid years -- notorious members of the security forces such as Ferdi Barnard and Eugene de Kock appeared before the commission. These allegations were proved to be true.
Harms later defended the commission's findings, saying witnesses had lied. He was appointed judge in the Transvaal Provincial Division in 1986 until his appointment to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Harms is an intellectual property rights expert.
A champion of human rights
JUDGE Azhar Cachalia is a well known former human rights lawyer and comes from struggle "royalty". He has a documented history of his involvement in the liberation struggle. As a student at Wits University, he was detained on several occasions for his involvement in campaigns.
He received a banning order for five years that was imposed in 1981 and lifted in August 1983. In the same year, Cachalia was involved in the formation of the Transvaal Indian Congress and the United Democratic Front (UDF). He was the UDF's national treasurer from 1985 until it was disbanded in 1991.
Cachalia represented many ANC activists during the 1980s. In the early 1990s he provided legal advice to the ANC and represented the party during the Goldstone Commission. He was state witness in Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's murder and kidnapping trial.
He was part of the team that drafted the new Police Act as adviser to the safety and security department.
Warrants were vague -- Farlam
JUDGE Ian Farlam was one of two Supreme Court of Appeal judges who ruled in Zuma's favour in their minority judgment in the search and seizure case two years ago.
Farlam and Judge Tom Cloete agreed with Durban High Court Judge Noel Hurt that the disputed warrants that gave the Scorpions permission to seize documents from Zuma's and Thint's premises were "inappropriately vague". Farlam said the documents should be held in the custody of a high court registrar until the state decided to charge Zuma again.
Farlam obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Cape Town in 1961.
In 1962 he became a public prosecutor, and a state advocate in 1968.
He was appointed a judge in the Cape of Good Hope Provincial Division in 1993.
Ruling against Zuma not a first
IT IS not the first time that Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Visvanathan Moonsamy Ponnan has ruled against Zuma.
In 2007 he was part of a majority judgment that upheld the National Prosecuting Authority's appeal on a search and seizure issue. In that case, Ponnan did not agree with Farlam, who was also on the bench in yesterday's judgment.
Ponnan ruled that Durban High Court Judge Noel Hurt's reasoning showed an approach that was "fundamentally unsound". Hurt had ruled that the disputed warrants that gave the Scorpions permission to seize documents from Zuma's and Thint's premises were "inappropriately vague".
However, Ponnan once ruled in Zuma's favour when he found that the raids at the offices of his lawyer, Julekha Mahomed, amounted to nothing less than a naked invasion of the privacy of her home and office without the requisite justification.
Ponnan was appointed to the Supreme Court of Appeal by Mbeki, after he was advised by the Judicial Service Commission in 2004.
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