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Cape Town — Two weeks before national elections in which the ruling African National Congress is being challenged for the first time by an opposition party formed from within its ranks, the party's leader, Jacob Zuma, has questioned the basis of South Africa's constitutional order.
In an interview with one of the country's leading political journalists, Zuma hinted that he believed judges ought to be brought under the authority of other branches of government. South Africa's Constitution – hailed as one of the world's best when it was adopted in 1996 – makes its Constitutional Court the final arbiter of the rights of South Africans.
According to Moshoeshoe Monare, political editor of South Africa's Independent newspaper group, Zuma said in the interview on Wednesday: "If I sit here and I look at a chief justice of the Constitutional Court [South Africa's top judicial officer], you know, that is the ultimate authority, which I think we need to look at it because I don't think we should have people who are almost like God in a democracy... Why are they not human beings?"
He added: "Because... you can have a judge of whatever level making a judgment (and) other judges turning it and saying it was wrong. (This) just tells you they are not necessarily close to God. And therefore we have to look at it in a democratic setting; how do you avoid that?"
Zuma is on course to become South Africa's next president after elections on April 22. In recent months he and his supporters have attacked judges – including those of the Constitutional Court – who have ruled against him in his ongoing struggle to beat corruption charges.
The Constitution guarantees the independence of the judiciary from the executive. Zuma will have the power to choose the country's next chief justice and deputy chief justice but when he appoints replacements for the nine other judges of the Constitutional Court, he has to choose from a list compiled by a broadly-based Judicial Service Commission. (In the case of the top two appointments he has only to consult the commission and leaders of political parties in Parliament.)
Amending the constitution would require a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The ANC had such a majority in the last Parliament but opposition parties hope to end it in the forthcoming election. Opinion polls indicate that although no opposition party can hope to replace the ANC in government, the ruling party will be returned with a reduced majority.
The principal party hoping to draw votes from the ANC's support base, the Congress of the People (COPE), is led by ANC members who broke away after the firing of the former president, Thabo Mbeki, last September.
A leading founder of COPE, former defence minister and ANC chairman Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, cited Zuma's efforts to escape prosecution as one of the reasons for leaving the ANC. After charges against Zuma were dropped by prosecutors last Monday, Lekota called for them to be reinstated.
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Zuma could be a dangerous man as President, backed by men with distorted minds like the SACP. Firstly, Zuma contradicts himself almost daily in what he says, he likes to tell people what they want to hear, he has NOT been cleared of a lot of wrong doings by any court of law. Now he says he will not take revenge after his recent episode but he also hints at appointing all judges himself in future. And then his strange obsession with religious affairs (Biblical). This sounds like a man who wants to govern Mugabe-style. It would be very interesting to see what the ANC and its allies are going to do if they don't get a two-thirds majority in the election. They will stop at nothing to get what they want which means SA is standing on the edge of a big gaping hole into which any semblance of democracy that might have remained, will disappear.
Nothing in the interview even suggests that Cde. Zuma intends to abolish the "independence of the judiciary." Nothing, at all.
Secondly, the doctrine of the "independence of judiciary" is not absolute, for juducial decisions can be reversed by a referendum. Moreover, the doctrine is capable of different, even conflicting interpretations.
In American jurisprudence, for example, the doctrine, supposedly an anchor of a democratic culture, is critized as UNDEMOCRATIC, since judges of the United States Supreme Court are not elected. The fact that they are appointed and confirmed by elected officials does not make them democratically sired.
The conclusion is obvious: democratic theory harbors a gut wrenching contradiction. It pushes the "rule of law." But, the final arbiters of what the constitution, which establishes what "the rule of law," means, as Justice Marshall ruled in an opinion that is the locus classicus of judicial hocus pocus, are "UNELECTED JUDGES."
That is a tension, if not a contradiction, that no judicial or political spinning can efface.
Accordingly, Cde. Zuma's comments should surprise no one familiar with the literature on the "independence of the judiciary." The issue is undecidable juridically, but decisively decidable politically.
Here comes AllAfrica.com again - with its Lonrho's colonial - plunderers' propaganda.
Constitution?
It is said that if the lion applauds an antelope, then the antelope is advised to move with utmost haste to re-evaluate what it is doing.
The foreign plunderers applauded South Africa for its rhodie-friendly 'constitution'.
Shaka's kid goes to school under a tree. And the native wallows in poverty and destitution in the resource-rich motherland. And the wealth of Azania fattens a foreign breed - the invaders.
By a foreigners' 'constitution' applauded by the plundering, ancestor-murdering foreigners and the likes of the cross-dressing foreigner's pet Tutu.
Enough said. .
" .. After the fall of apartheid in 1994, the African National Congress, which is widely expected to win a general election this month, set itself a target of handing 30 percent of all agricultural land to the black majority by 2014. .."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090415/wl_nm/us_safrica_farm_invasion
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Aren't these lands 100% ancestral?
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Here is a though: If you the Zulu violently invaded and occupied UK's lands, (and killed multitudes of them), then how much time, if any, do you suppose the Zulu - ALL ZULU - would be given to vacate the UK lands - ALL the lands - once the UK natives gained the upper hand?
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Cde Zuma, why is the 'constitution' in South Africa still recognize white power and privileges in the lands of Shaka? Did the natives of UK keep the roman law once they kicked out the invaders?
Why do we have neo-apartheid there? Are the natives - Shaka's own - afraid of running their affairs or standing up to the foreign elements?
What do the warriors of the Umkhonto we Sizwe say about it?
Have they been asked? Did the spirits any of our valiant ancestors (by way of our elders) sanction such evil to befall the lands? Which Inggonyama? Or was it Inkosi Enkhulu? Or Khosikhulu? Did a wayward Kgôsi admit it? Perhaps the spirit of a hallowed hero of in the peoples' amaNdzundza dynasty?
Of course not. Our valiant ancestors fought bravely against great odds - for the future and the lands, the birthright, of the natives' offspring.
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ANC. What do those initials mean to the ancestors? What peoples' tongue is that? It wouldn't be the tongue of those who invaded the lands on a christian mission of rape, torture and murder of the people and commandeered their ancestral lands - thereby condemning the people unto servitude, destitution and alienation from ancestors and lands, would it be?
Does ANC expect to escape the wrath of the native by hiding behind foreign languages, foreigners' 'constitution' and foreigners' name? What is wrong with the peoples' languages? Weren't they communicating and minding their kingdoms and chieftainships before the invaders arrived?
ANC, Cde Zuma, why the foreigners' 'constitution' that is used by foreigners to rationalize, whitewash and 'institutionalize' their crimes against humanity in South Africa?
The white man has the people who draw up a 'constitution' that upholds white supremacy and caters to their interests. That may be good for UK, USA, Australia etc.
Do the natives in Africa mean to go the way of the millions of natives in North/South America and Australia who were slowly and surely - inexorably - exterminated by the same foreigners under discussion?
The natives of Azania have their people too who can draw up a good constitution for the native.
Zuma is 100% correct!
Get rid of the eurocentric constitution, which is designed to entrench european domination of Africans and the continued control of African Lands, Wealth and Resources by criminal and racist invaders.
The real thieves in South Africa are the criminal and racist invaders. They are the ones who should be hauled before South African courts, not Mandela or Zuma, etc.
And judges who think that Africans can 'steal' their own African wealth is anti-African!
The courts should be filled with Africans. And the judges should be selected by the representatives of the African people. That is how the S African Constitution should read.
Omagosh, You are the worst racist the planet has ever seen, Hitler would of been proud of you. You honestly think that you can run around and do what you like when you like how you like whenever you like without being answerable to anyone for your actions. Grow up litlle man.