The tourism minister appears to have again refuted the President's statement that she had apologised for a previous attack on the judiciary.

Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu repeated her January attack on the judiciary and the Constitution in a spit-fire speech at Unisa on Tuesday.

"The judiciary is not untouchable and the South African Constitution is not a holy script," said Sisulu in a speech to Unisa's College of Law. Sisulu also denied that she had apologised to President Cyril Ramaphosa for an opinion article in January in which she equated some members of the judiciary to mentally colonised "house niggers", an African American term for sell-outs.

She said: "... evidence suggests the judiciary may be in cahoots with the elite against the very people it should be defending; the problem with the judiciary is it hasn't been above the fray where it should have been."

The 11-page speech went on in the same vein at some length.

"... the courts do make law, and if the result is unsatisfactory after 28 years, must we not have a second look at how we can aid the courts through judicial reform and reform of the Constitution," said Sisulu, who has been in...