Judiciary

Judges must not undermine the integrity of the courts

The country's judges need to ensure that they do not undermine public confidence in the courts through their own actions. While society must continually defend the independence and integrity of the judiciary, there is equally a responsibility on judges themselves to uphold the highest standards of fairness, honesty and objectivity.

Yet when ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe made this point last week, many commentators claimed that the ANC had launched an attack on the judiciary; some media claimed that he had described the actions of the Constitutional Court as "counter-revolutionary".

In addresses to the ANC KwaZulu Natal provincial conference and the second session of the ANC Youth League's adjourned congress, Mantashe commented, among other things, on the complaint laid against Cape Judge President John Hlope by the Constitutional Court.

He raised concerns about the manner in which the Constitutional Court judges had handled the matter, in particular how they had released a press statement making allegations against Hlope even before a complaint had been laid with the Judicial Services Commission (JSC). He noted how, once the allegations were in the public domain, the focus of attention had very quickly shifted to ANC President Jacob Zuma. There was no explanation for this other than the pursuit by some people of a vendetta against the ANC President.

Mantashe criticised the manner in which the Constitutional Court judges had handled the Hlope matter. But he did not call them counter-revolutionary, and he did nothing to undermine their independence or constitutional mandate. Like all public institutions, the judiciary must be prepared for their actions to be scrutinised, discussed and criticised. That is not unhealthy in a democracy.

In a letter written this week in response to media reports, Mantashe said his comments were not an attack on the judges of the Constitutional Court. His comments had been misrepresented in media reports.

Reporters covering his addresses in KwaZulu Natal and to the ANC Youth League made no distinction between those forces that were 'counter-revolutionary' and those whose actions had placed the ANC 'under siege'. They are not necessarily the same, and he had not suggested that they were necessarily the same.

In his letter, Mantashe said: "The first point I made was that counter-revolutionary forces are at work and are busy regrouping. The example cited was the envisaged cooperation and ultimate merger of the recycled parties that have their roots in the apartheid era, all in an effort to realign the opposition against the ANC. This merger is not informed by any commonality of the programmes or ideological agreement but by the desire to form a strong bloc against the ANC. The argument is that society must always be given alternative policy options rather than oppositionism."

"This point was taken further by illustrating that our movement is under siege. The question of the Hlope case was cited within the context of a case of Hlope being the accused and Zuma being the content. Instead of dealing with the alleged misconduct of a judge in the internal disciplinary processes the whole case was put in the public domain even before the JSC received the complaint. As a sequel to this strange handling of the Hlope case the submission of the Constitutional Court and responding affidavit of the accused judge became the subject of public debate. The debate shifted from Hlope to Zuma."

Mantashe did not say that the actions of the Constitutional Court judges was counter-revolutionary. But he did say that their actions brought the highest court in the land into disrepute. "The holier-than-thou critics of the ANC tend to think that any critical view on the behaviour of judges constitutes an attack on the judiciary as if judges have unlimited rights to trample on individual rights or rights of other institutions."

"When a judge attacks the ANC at a private party, we are told he has the right to express his view and should enjoy the freedom to express himself. However, according to this logic, the ANC does not enjoy the same freedom when it criticises the behaviour of the same judge or judges," he said in the letter.

In one of the more unfortunate responses to these media reports, published in Business Day, former ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) member Raymond Suttner repeated the falsehood that Mantashe had "attacked the Constitutional Court and associated it with counterrevolutionary forces".

While the article went on to deal with a range of other matters not related to the judiciary, many of which the ANC finds objectionable, Suttner did make one important point: "The ANC leadership has until now appreciated that abiding by Constitutional Court decisions has instilled public confidence in the democratic system. Its respect as the strongest political force is essential for stable democratic order. This does not preclude criticism of decisions or individual judges or judgments, which are not the same as impugning the integrity of the institution."

On this point at least, the ANC couldn't agree more.

Social Transformation

Needs of the poor receive priority

As the year of mass mobilisation to build a caring society reaches its mid-point, government has reported on the work being done to ensure the needs of the poor receive priority.

Briefing the media earlier this week, the government's social cluster reported on the detailed work being done in social security, health, housing and education.

The cluster reported three broad programme activities with respect to comprehensive social security, one of the ways in which the needs of the poor can most directly be addressed. These include the finalisation of social insurance and its different elements, the release of the consolidated position paper on social security and retirement reforms, and exploring the possibilities of introducing a wage subsidy for low-wage employees directed mainly at new entrants in the job market.

Health and the provision of health care remains a very contested terrain in our country. One of government's key focus areas is the finalisation and implementation of a government-wide integrated comprehensive programme on health promotion targeted at the youth in particular.

The Tobacco Control Amendment Bill has just been passed by the National Assembly and is being referred to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence. This bill seeks to further control the advertising, promotion and sale of tobacco products in the country in line with the healthy lifestyles campaign and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Work is underway to expand the number of health promoting schools from 3,500 to at least 5,000.

Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, asthma and hypertension continue to place a burden on the country's health care system. A consultation process is therefore underway to finalise a framework for long term care for non-communicable diseases.

On the reduction of medicine costs, the dispensing fee for pharmacists was gazetted on 1 December 2006 but was subsequently challenged by the pharmacy association. The Pricing Committee considered all inputs on benchmarking and has compiled a report for the Minister of Health's consideration. The Minister will then announce the final methodology for international benchmarking after the deliberations on this matter have taken place.

The implementation of the National Strategic Plan for HIV and AIDS is continuing as planned. The 2007 SADC HIV and AIDS Epidemic Report was compiled and submitted to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat in April 2008. The 2007 Annual National HIV and Syphilis Prevalence Survey data has been analysed and the report-writing is currently underway. Data as at June 2008, indicates that the number of people tested for HIV (excluding in antenatal clinics) is 1,474,437.

Closely related to this matter is the management of tuberculosis (TB). Recent data suggests a decrease in both the infection and defaulter rate in line with the tasks set out in President Thabo Mbeki's State of the Nation Address earlier this year. In the past week the health department announced new developments around TB diagnosis which will now enable testing and production of MDR-TB results within seven days, as opposed to the current three to four months.

The social cluster ministers said they were generally encouraged by progress in housing provision. To date, banks have released over R38 Billion for financing housing development and ownership. However, the upward movement of interest rates along with rising fuel and food prices have had the effect of eroding affordability for housing.

Regarding measures aimed at ensuring home ownership, an inclusionary housing policy has been finalised and implemented across private and publicly driven housing development. Multiple housing projects that are designed as mixed income housing developments serve to ensure cross subsidisation and achieve inclusionary housing objectives. The establishment of the Housing Development Agency is at an advanced stage. The bill that establishes the agency is in its final stages in the NCOP.

Food security and nutrition

Poverty, hunger and malnutrition continue to present serious challenges which have an impact on the health of our people. This problem is now lately compounded by steep fuel and food prices which make it increasingly difficult for our people to access even basic food-stuffs.

Government is continuing with its Household Food Production Programme among other interventions as part of improving food security among the most food insecure and vulnerable communities.

It is also continuing with developing financing requirements for the farmer support programme focusing mainly on areas of large concentration of farm dwellers and those with high eviction rates.

The third and final year of the recapitalisation of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges began in April 2008. Detailed plans from all 50 FET colleges for expenditure of R795 million on infrastructure, equipment and human resources have been submitted and approved by Cabinet. Nearly R400 million was transferred to colleges in May 2008.

Progress is being made with efforts to double the output of universities in priority sectors by aligning the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and subsidy funding for scarce skills. To realise this objective, government committed R439 million over the 2007-2009 period largely towards improving teaching and learning infrastructure.

On literacy and numeracy, Grade 3 literacy and numeracy baseline assessment have been conducted in 14 districts covering 3 500 schools. By November 2008 all the districts will have baseline information for monitoring the quality of learning and teaching in literacy and numeracy based on the national standardised tests that will be administered to all learners in grades 1-6 in November 2008.

Forty percent of learners (approximately 5 million in over 14,000 schools) are now in no-fee schools in terms of the SA Schools Act. This is in line with our vision of ensuring free education especially for those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.

More Information:

• Government Programme of Action Briefings, June-July 2008

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