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.
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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.
