Schabir Shaik, who was convicted of bribing President Jacob Zuma and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for bribing our President, was unlawfully released from prison on 3 March 2009 on medical parole “to die a dignified death” because he was supposedly in the last stages of a terminal illness. Mr Shaik has now been a free man for more than 250 days after being released for supposedly being at death’s door, which just goes to show that he was released based on lies and deception.
Of course, we know Shaik was not at deaths door (because we saw the report prepared by the doctors who never said that he was in the last stages of a terminal illness), and we thus know for a fact that the parole board released Shaik unlawfully as Shaik did not meet the legal criteria for release.
Meanwhile Shaik has been spotted playing golf (but not – yet – doing what that other famous golfer seems to have been doing over the past few years). A medical miracle indeed.
In a written reply to a parliamentary question by the Democratic Alliance, Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said last week Shaik was authorised to attend physiotherapy from 10.30am to 12.30pm on the Wednesday when he was spotted on the golf course, which prompts one to wonder whether his physiotherapist might not be an avid golfer.
The newspaper article about him allegedly being spotted playing golf at a club in Durban was brought to his attention and an explanation was requested from him. ”Mr Shaik submitted a statement in this regard wherein he refuted the allegation,” Mapisa-Nqakula said.
So, let’s get this straight. The Minister is taking at his word, a man who was convicted of fraud and corruption and was found by the trial judge to lack any honesty and credibility. I really have a nice piece of lush forest land in the Karoo I want to sell to the Minister along with shares in a pyramid scheme. Come to think of it, maybe I can get the Minister to ask Father Christmas to bring me a Porsche. (I have always been envious of the Judge President because he drives a Porsche while claiming to care about transformation and the poor.) If she believes Shaik, she must surely also believe in Father Christmas, the tooth fairly and the integrity of the arms deal.
Mapisa-Nqakula also said she had no evidence that the doctors erred in their recommendation to grant Shaik medical parole, nor that the Correctional Supervision and Parole Board erred in its decision. Well, this is unfortunately not true. The Act states that a person has to be in the last stages of a terminal illness and THEN the parole board can consider him or her for release. The doctors never said that Shaik was in the last stages of a terminal illness, hence the parole board erred. The Minister’s claim that there is no evidence that it erred is so preposterous and laughable that it really casts a very dark shadow over the integrity and honesty of our Minister.
It is amazing how some among us would not play fast and loose with the truth in order to ingratiate yourself with The Leader.
We all know Shaik was released because that is what President Zuma wanted. The fact that the release was illegal is just by the by. It has been more than 250 days now since the parole board has first acted unlawfully and since various Ministers have condoned this unlawful actions by providing ridiculous and untrue explanations for the release, for the legal basis of the release and for the reasons not to refer the matter to the parole appeals board.
Nothing will of course be done about this flagrant disregard of the law in order to benefit the man who bribed our President, because in the world of some people the law only applies to ordinary people – not to friends of the President (especially not friends of the President who bribed that President) and definitely not to her holy highness the Minister of Correctional Services.
Wonder how long before we spot Shaik having tea with President Zuma and Julius Malema? Another 250 days perhaps?
“Wonder how long before we spot Shaik having tea with President Zuma and Julius Malema? Another 250 days perhaps?”
Prof, what makes you think they have not had tea yet? This is South Africa and anything is possible.
Your article reminds me of Prof. Snyman who argued in his book, Criminal Law, 4th Edition, that it pays to be a criminal in South Africa.
A prime example of how this gangster government operates. Keep up the good work Pierre!
Of greater concern to me would be, in the preponderance of examples, the shear ability to dance one’s way so easily and willfully (almost nonchalantly) around the clear mandate of the law. It has just been announced that JZ believes that the Government is the boss of the NPA (the NPA must report to the Govt because some decisions have ‘implication’ [M&G]).
In the light of the flagrant disregard for the law I am wondering to what ethical ‘power’ we can turn to? Is not Justice the handmaiden of rightness (righteousness) and is it not that which ‘exults’ a nation? Where now can we turn? If the appeal to conscience and morality can no longer be sustained by the law, then does not the Constitution itself become toothless and impotent as a vehicle for our nations (righteous) backbone? If so have we lost our soul already as many other countries (both in Africa and in the rest of the world) have done?
Does a blog such as this not already constitute the practice of the middle (dark) ages when people of conscience and spirituality became the ‘Desert fathers’ or chose to become ‘monastic’ as a way of preserving the honesty of soul they cherished?
PdV says,
“We all know Shaik was released because that is what President Zuma wanted”.
No wonder the DA leader, madam Hellen Zille scored our people’s president and our seccond Nelson Mandela in the making 1 for his respect for the constitition and law, and almost 10 for charm.
Gangsters indeed!
Professor, thanks for being willing to draw attention to the abuses of power that are causing the erosion of the rule of law. There are so many of them in this country that it does not miss the truth by much to say that by underscoring those abuses for the public’s benefit, you pretty much have a second job. But what you do is important. Indeed I think that stressing governmental abuses of power is an important social function that members of the academy should perform.
On a more appealing note, I do start to wonder whether the ANC’s position of pre-eminence may not be as strong as many of its detractors might believe. I say so for two reasons: the first draws heavily from a piece that you wrote last week concerning the AbM shackdweller movement. It may not be inconceivable that more movements of that general nature will arise. That will involve black South Africans taking issue with government on readily relevant and understandable matters. And it seems to me (to put it very frankly) that the ANC is going to have to piss off enough black South Africans before things change meaningfully in this country. The second reason is that complacency is sometimes a vulnerability of itself. The correctional services Minister’s communications about Shaik are indicative of general governmental complacency. There is nothing clever or thoughtful about the way in which our politicians go about promoting selfish interests at the expense of the rules. They do it because as things stand, there is precious little that can be done about it. I reckon one question becomes whether history has shown us that such states of affairs will eventually be met with robust challenge. I think so. Apartheid gave rise to white people adopting principled stances against government. It does not beggar belief that the ANC’s behaviour will come to speak louder than its history or its personalities.
What I fail to grasp, or understand, is why the Constitution and the judiciary with its established law, is so powerless. Is the root of this impotence, cowardice?
Cowardice: the perceived failure to demonstrate sufficient robustness in the face of a challenging situation. (wikipedia)
Leigh, you may be right that the ANC may begin to lose power to shackdwellers (or some formal political movement based upon social movements, the unemployed, SACP’s left wing, etc.)
That may be a good thing, in these sense that a left wing government would put Malema, Kebblelists, tendentrepreneurs, javeline throwers (?) and assorted neo-fascist Africanost chauvanists in their place.
But would it be such a good thing from the perspective of the privileged elite — by which I mean everyone who contributes to this blog, including Pierre.
As Pierre has suggested, the ANC, for all of its faults, may be the best guarantor of the capitalism which, at least in the short and medium terms, so benefits us of the chattering classes.
Africonist = Africanist
@ Michael,
You make a fair point when you suggest that should the ANC loose support to grassroots movements, we may see some questionable players come to hold greater measures of political sway. And as you suggest further, such a development may impact adversely on some of the very people who are critical of the ANC.
But at the very least, such a development could conceivably inspire the ANC to change its culture and embrace the notion of meritocracy. That is, even if the politics of the players who are most likely to benefit from an ANC decline could prejudice to some extent the privileged elite, I do wonder whether competition in politics, regardless to at least some extent of the nature of the politics, is better than the politics we have as things presently stand.
Michael: “As Pierre has suggested, the ANC, for all of its faults, may be the best guarantor of the capitalism which, at least in the short and medium terms, so benefits us of the chattering classes”.
You can’t be serious. That surely is an acceptance that the regime with all it stupendous and devastating impacts on the country, is better than… what?
If we accept this I think we are the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand.
However, there is that in history to support the idea that: when faced with overwhelming evil, retreat and secure self, and all one holds dear.
My apologies for the ‘evil’ word. However, if stealing your taxpaying, hard worked for earnings to finance a growing elitist lifesyle distainful of poverty, rude to its employer (us), arrogant, threatening, where money is no object, simply plastic in the slot of our world today for thieves everywhere, and at the cost of giving to the people services they deserve and are entitled to, opportunity, education, health, extension of life… hope
not to mention arts, sports for the young, counselling for the sick, I could go on and on.
the deliberate heartless failure of which… that’s my definition of evil.
Merry Christmas to everyone. May you accept my apology if I have ever offended you with my comments this year. Merry Christmas.
mayimele says:
December 14, 2009 at 12:39 pm
“No wonder the DA leader, madam Hellen Zille scored our people’s president and our seccond Nelson Mandela in the making 1 for his respect for the constitition and law, and almost 10 for charm”.
The LGE is gonna be telling – there’s hardly any ANC elected local government representatives who will score more than three for charm.
Without the “charm”, with sorry excuses for pathetic performances at local level, with the seeming inability to reign in wayward local reps, I cannot see voters mobilising behind the ANC as they did in previous elections.
Someone said to me earlier in the week something to the effect that “I though I was voting for the ANC with its history, its policies and everything that it stands for, but instead I voted for crooks and criminals. Never again.”
I suspect that a serious wake up call is coming.
@ Sirjay asks
“That surely is an acceptance that the regime with all it stupendous and devastating impacts on the country, is better than… what?”
Than a government with the ideological commitments likely to emerge from the social movements, radical unionists and various populist groups that would appear to constitute the only viable alternative power base to the ANC.
The liberal alternative to the ANC is, of course, a non-starter, irrespective of what policies it proposed. No white-run party will have a shred of legitimacy in SA for the next 100 years or so.
Both the left and liberal alternatives thus being disasters, are we not stuck with the ANC, more or less forever?
//
So Prof. you envy the Honourable Hlophe for his Porsche, I just do not understand how a person’s driving of Porsche should disqualify them for advocating transformation or engaging in philanthropic activities, enough about Shaik nothing will change I said it long ago, and may you all have a merry chistmas, and thanks Prof for allowing me to disagree with you for most of 2009 and lastly thanks for erudite and informative articles!
Michael Osborne says:
December 15, 2009 at 6:39 am
“No white-run party will have a shred of legitimacy in SA for the next 100 years or so”.
Race is indeed a defining element and the “liberal alternatives” have been unable to transcend that.
As irritated as I am with the goings on in the ANC for now, no other party has any appeal, although I do think kindly of the ID.
Mdu is right.
It has been evident to all of us this year that the Prof would enjoy nothing more than a driving onto mid-campus in a black Porsche Cayenne.
But white liberals should not begrudge Hlophe JP (arguably the finest legal mind in the southern hemisphere), his choice of vehicle. After all, he did not join the struggle to drive Japanese cars with an engine capacity of less than 1,6 liters!
Maggs, I tend to agree with Leigh that, unless there is competition in politics — in the sense that the ruling party understands that, unless it gets it house in order, it may lose at the polls — there is very little chance that the ruling party will self-correct.
You may respond that intra-party competition must in South Africa serve as a substitute for cross-party contestation. That may be so. The cynics will say that there is a fundamental continuity, in the sense that faction B, once it is ensconced in power, will emerge as no less corrupt than the faction A that it displaced.
Mikhail Dworkin Fassbinder says:
December 15, 2009 at 8:14 am
LOL, only the Southern Hemiphere? But then of course, Hlope does not provide such good quotes as does Justice Conrad Seagroatt!
Michael, I tend to the cynical view which you mentioned. That is that intra-party competition is unlikely to yield attractive results – at least this is my view if we are to discuss such competition in the context of the ANC and in the political conditions which presently obtain in our country. I tend towards the cynics for two linked reasons: the first is that it could well be that the prominent members in the opposing factions would be motivated by their selfish interests. And while such motivation does not necessarily rule out the possibility that they would try to out perform each other, it seems to me that the more likely possibility is that the opposing factions will try to out do each other by way of smear tactics and so on. Should smear tactics be employed then the electorate would suffer in the sense that far from serving as a motivation to better performance, the intra-party competition would serve as a distraction. In short, at best nothing good would come of it and at worst, government’s performance could decline. The second reason ties up with the first in that it seems we can say safely that the ANC (for at least the time being) has no need to fear the adverse consequences of nasty in-fighting. That is, it could be that many people who tend towards the ANC would stop voting rather than vote for another party. And that neither helps the opposition nor does it hurt the ANC.
Michael Osborne says:
December 15, 2009 at 8:45 am
Maggs, I tend to agree with Leigh that, unless there is competition in politics — in the sense that the ruling party understands that, unless it gets it house in order, it may lose at the polls — there is very little chance that the ruling party will self-correct.
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I agree with that too.
But supporting an opposition because the ANC is not doing what is expected of it is not an option (for me at least).
@ Maggs,
You make out that supporting the opposition because the ANC is not getting the job done is out of the question for you.
With respect, this approach reflects questionable loyalties. I think the question here is whether a member of the South African electorate should be loyal to a party on the one hand, or to the cause of promoting the country’s best interests on the other. I tend to the latter view. And the logical implication of my view (at least insofar as it concerns my personal case) is this: I am averse to the ANC as things stand because I think that the party is ruining this country in some ways. I would vote for what I thought to be the most able of the opposition parties (however ineffectual such a vote may be in the broader order of things as our country’s affairs presently stand) because that is one way to indicate my dissatisfaction with the ruling party. If many ANC partisans who are frustrated with that party avoid voting rather than supporting the opposition, the ANC will not be motivated to better its politics. Thus we will all end up stuck with a ruling party that tends to perks before duties.
I once encountered an analogy which I like very much and which I think is quite relevant to this exchange between you, Michael and me: we may not enjoy the taste of the medicine. We take it because we have the foresight to see that it is in our interest to do so. For an ANC partisan, actually voting against the ANC may be so distasteful as to be fairly traumatic. But the question becomes whether that partisan should suffer the medicine in the knowledge that doing so would ultimately be in the interests of both the ANC and the country. I think that however deep the partisan’s affinity with the ANC happens to be, the ANC is not more important than the best interests of the South African people.
Leigh says:
December 16, 2009 at 8:53 am
In essence it’s the commitment of many of us who are “ANC partisans” towards the NDR that is of importance.
None of the opposition parties are materially inclined towards that.
Of course there is much in the way that the ANC has allowed itself to get rather messed up that is a cause for concern – ways have to be found to correct that.
As I said before, 2011 is going to be one great shakeup for the ANC – there is simply not enough local leaders who inspire, neither has the ANC created the impression that it is in charge of its deployees at local level.
Maggs
“In essence it’s the commitment of many of us who are “ANC partisans” towards the NDR that is of importance.
None of the opposition parties are materially inclined towards that”
Maggs we have been through this before, but let me try again:
What, in very practical terms, is the difference in practical terms (not tone, not ethnicity, not personalities), is the difference between the concrete policies of the ANC and, say, the UDM, that induces you to support the former and not the latter?
You speak of the NDR. I am honestly not sure what determinate meaning that term even has anymore. Whatever it is, it must be very, very broad, so broad as to be meaningless, if it can be said to be adhered to by the vast ideological variety, running from the genuinely left, to Africanist, to unabashedly capitalist, to be found in the contemporarary ANC.
Michael Osborne says:
December 16, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I don’t know what the concrete policies of these parties are. If they have policies that are appealing then it’s up to them to popularise it and inspire voters. It’s materially important that political parties also are able to demonstrate their ability and capacity to implement their polcicies. If they fail to do that, as most fail, their best policies become irrelevant.
Re the NDR – it is indeed very broad and, as you correctly point out, subject to all kinds of interpretations (“I did not join the struggle to be poor” is but one).
Whatever ideological position is taken, it’s unlikely that any interpretation can support some of the current goings on – the fact that the most recent Gini coefficient has shown that we have about the highest wealth gap in the world is extremely worrisome.
That people are struggling to get ID books is about as counterrevolutionary as it gets – it can never have been intended by any interpretation that our people are rendered non-people by the democratic government.
It could hardly have been intended that a three year old toddler has her legs amputated after requiring treatment for burns on her hands because the sorry excuses for civil servants are too lazy and uncaring to do their jobs.
It could never have been intended that people raid the state coffers at almost every turn because they can, while our leaders look on almost helplessly or indifferently.
We have been steered away from the NDR – President Zuma was given a clear and decisive mandate to bring the country back on track. With each passing day I am less and less optimistic that that is going to happen.
It won’t be long before the people of our country call the ANC to account.
Maggs, if indeed you are disenchanted, perhaps you should go and find out what these opposition parties (other than the despised DA), have to offer. Not wait until they knock on your door.
Bur you have still not told me what the NDR is. Must one see it as the first stage in a 2-stage revolution?
Michael Osborne says:
December 16, 2009 at 21:47 pm
That would be rather like “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.
Even if other parties developed better policies than the ANC it’s unlikely that I would give them any serious consideration, certainly I am not inclined to go in search of their soul.
The National Democratic Revolution is a process, not multi stage events – but if the tide of corruption, incompetence (eish, I hope Dworky is not around to see me use that ugly word
), indifference, greed, criminality, arrogance is not stemmed, rather than achieve the aspirations of the Freedom Charter, we will end up with one big mess.
I dunno how the authorities at any and every level can allow our people even in a few areas to live with raw sewerage in the streets, with dysfunctional schools, with hospitals without the most basic of resources and and and.
It seems that our hard core activists have disappeared down the chutes of wealth and glory, only to emerge when there’s positions and patronage to be received.
But it’s still early days, let’s see how our President does by his mid term – in many respects I am encouraged.
Although I think he has potential, I am still unclear why Malema has been allowed to become the policy head of the ANC though – it’s almost as though our President fears him, but on the other hand our President is known to engage challenging situations with calm and steady resolve. Time will tell.
Maybe South African Correctional authorities should go look see how medical parole is done elsewhere in the world, so that the media monitoring thereof cannot go into criticizing mode http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/5df42ec704d7496f93a05b102aeb2041/20-12-2009-08-08/Lockerbie_bomber_health_deteriorates
First it was “I’m a revolutionary and I’ll take on Mbeki and his boys”, now Mr Shaik has turned on President Zuma!
“Speaking to the newspaper, Shaik demanded a fucking pardon’”.
“The newspaper Rapport quoted him saying that as long as he remained a prisoner, ‘other people are equally guilty’.
“‘Why should I ask for pardon at all? If three people were part of a so-called plot to elicit money out of the French, why are the French free, why is the president free and why is Shaik still a prisoner? Come on!’ he said”.
http://www.timeslive.co.za/news/article239156.ece
I suppose it does not matter now that he’s “terminally ill”!