Quote of the week
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am your God – Leviticus 19:33-34.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit – Ephesians 2:19-22.
Christian Bible
Either Mr Zuma and his executive are being deliberately obtuse to obscure their real intentions and attitude towards the independence of the judiciary, the doctrine of the separation of powers and the supremacy of the constitution, or the Presidency is in desperate need of advice from an experienced constitutional lawyer. The latter possibility — that Mr Zuma simply does not “get” the constitutional democracy concept and has failed to surround himself with people who do — cannot be excluded, despite the fact that the political party he heads was the primary driver of the process that led to the writing of the constitution. That internationally acclaimed document’s main authors were, and remain, sympathetic towards the freedom struggle and the African National Congress’s (ANC’s) stated goal of transforming SA politically, economically and socially to shed the vestiges of apartheid. There is therefore no shortage of constitutional experts in the tripartite alliance who would be happy to provide guidance on such matters, yet senior party leaders keep making statements that appear to question the core principles on which our democracy is based, and the executive keeps acting in ways that leave the Constitutional Court no choice but to overturn its decisions. – Business Day editorial
