Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille has been very successful at cultivated the image of a no-nonsense, straight-shooting politician that sticks to her principles – no matter what. Her party has over the years also (rightly) lambasted the ANC for covering up the arms deal corruption and for making statements aimed at undermining the independence and impartiality of the Courts.
But in the wake of the appointment of judge Nathan Erasmus to head a Commission of Inquiry into allegations of illegal spying and other shenanigans around the floor crossing period, Mrs Zille seems to have thrown all these principles out of the window and in the process has probably irrevocably tarnished her image as Mrs Clean.
First, she has instructed her lawyers to take legal action to try and stop the Erasmus Commission from doing its work, claiming that the Commission was set up with a political motive merely to tarnish the image of the DA and the coalition government it leads in Cape Town. This kind of argument sounds awfully familiar. Is that not the kind of thing that ANC politicians say when they try to rubbish investigations of corruption against its own members? And when ANC politicians make such claims, is it not the kind of thing the DA leader shouts and screams about?
One would have thought that if the DA – and Zille in particular – had nothing to hide, it would welcome the chance to clear its name through such a Commission of Inquiry. By trying to stop a judge from finding out whether some DA politicians had broken the law, Mrs Zille seems to suggest that the DA has something to hide and that the party will do everything in its power to make sure that the truth does not come out.
This makes Zille and the DA appear shifty and dishonest – exactly the opposite of the image the DA leader is trying to project. It also makes Zille look like a rank hypocrite for always finding fault with the secretive ways of the ANC as far as corruption and maladministration is concerned, yet then to try and stop an Inquiry into corruption when it deals with her own party. She has every right to challenge the legality of the Commission, but politically, this is a very stupid move on her part. After all, people in glass houses should not throw the first stone.
Second, I was rather shocked and surprised to read that Mrs Zille had told a radio station that “some judges allow themselves to be abused and I am afraid Nathan Erasmus is one of them”.
In the past the DA had correctly criticised supporters of Jacob Zuma who had impugned the integrity of Judge Hillary Squires after he convicted Schabir Shaik and had also criticised the new ANC NEC for their scurrilous personal attack on Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke earlier this year. Such attacks, the DA had pointed out, undermine the independence of the judiciary and create distrust and disrespect for the judiciary which ultimately will undermine our democracy.
Yet, Mrs Zille attacked judge Erasmus in very personal terms and accused him of being abused and used by the ANC and did this in a transparent effort to undermine the credibility of the judge and of the Commission that he chairs. This is no different from the ANC Youth League and Young Communist League diatribes and shows a scandalous disregard for our Constitution. If Mrs Zille was really a woman of principle she would, at the very least, have apologised for the comment – yet when given the chance she declined to comment further on the matter.
If she really thinks that Judge Erasmus is being used or that he will be biased against the DA, she can always ask for him to recuse himself or bring an application to court to that effect. But to attack him personally is irresponsible and, once again, hypocritical.
It is also politically stupid because it would suggest to any reasonable bystanders – let alone the average voter – that the DA is trying to hide very serious corruption or maladministration from us and is prepared to say and do anything to stop the damaging information from coming out. What does Helen Zille have to hide, I wonder, that she is going to these lengths and is prepared to tarnish her image in this way in an attempt to stop the Commission from doing its work?
These are questions that will not go away. Like allegations about corruptions in the arms deal, which is still haunting the ANC, these latest allegations will continue to haunt the DA and its leader until the party comes clean or until a credible body exonerates it from wrongdoing.
I thought if one person understood this, it would be Helen Zille. But obviously even the most astute and media-savvy of politicians like Zille loses all sense of decorum once running a city like Cape Town. Sometimes I wonder whether we have something in the water here in Slaapstad that makes politicians behave in such monumentally stupid ways.
“… something in the water …” You mean, like E.coli? Nah, we have that everywhere these days. I figure it must be that mountain of yours.
Seriously, though: maybe it was all getting to be a bit too much for Helen, and now she’s finally lost it. One trusts her apology to the judge to be forthcoming post-haste.
*koff* politicians *koff*
I’ve never really trusted her, I must admit. But then I don’t trust any politician. Just look at the vile bunch we have in parly now, on all sides of the fence. She’s part of that psychotic kindergarden of borderline personality disorders. It had to rub off on her, it just had to. God knows what she’s hiding. I shudder to think.
I agree with this. They are protesting too much for everything to be above board. If they have nothing to hide, why not let the judge do his job and pronounce on this.
Note that the city is also taking the commission to court, so rate payers money is being used (abused) for party political issues. Isn’t this exactly what she is always accusing the ANC of.
It is also surprising that the media has not made more of this issue i.e. the fact that she and her city manager appears to be ducking and diving, at citizen’s expense.
Pierre,
I’m just as disappointed by Zille’s action. And in the wake of Zille’s bizzare actions, the ANC must be smiling in the dark. May be politicians have the same DNA, and may their father is Robert Mugabe.
There is a beautiful phrase once used by Tony Leon in his unrelenting criticism of the ruling party: he accused the ANC of standing on “shifting sands of political expediency”. It looks like his successor has joined the ruling party on the sand. I cannot help thinking that this sand must be the dirty sand of durban beaches which have recently been stripped of their Blue Flag/Crane ( for cleanest beaches) status by an international body.
Pierre, what should Zille be stripped of now that she has proved not to be Ms. Clean after all? If she was Manto Msimang, I would say, her wig.
Come on Pierre. What constitutional right does Rasool have to mess with the City? Why should Helen roll over, even if she does have nothing to hide? And on judges and commissions, suggest you read what Edwin Cameron had to say on the subject when Judge Munnik chaired a commission.
Brookes is right. Zille is functionally in the position of Saddam Hussein. He long resisted arms inspections, even though it turns out that,like Zille, he had nothing to hide. When Blix finally did get into Iraq, Saddam continued to play cat and mouse games, preventing Blix from seraching areas he claimed were his palaces, etc. Why did Saddam play this game? He was just protecting Iraq’s sovereignty against U.S. imperialism,. UN meddling, etc!
18 April 2008
A Message from Helen Zille
Recently, in a radio interview, I made the following statement regarding the Erasmus Commission of Inquiry:
“Some judges allow themselves to be abused, and unfortunately Nathan Erasmus is one of them.”
Die Burger criticized this statement as a challenge to the independence and integrity of the judiciary. On the basis of the advice of Senior Counsel, I am advised that Die Burger’s interpretation is incorrect. Below is my response to Die Burger, published this morning (Afrikaans version follows below).
Best wishes,
Helen Zille
Leader of the Democratic Alliance
To the Editor:
It is ironic that Die Burger’s editorial claiming to defend the independence of the judiciary does precisely the opposite.
The editorial is misguided and wrong. Its faulty premise is that Nathan Erasmus is chairing the Erasmus Commission in his capacity as a Judge and is therefore above criticism. He is NOT acting as a judge. He is merely the chairman of a commission. The commission is not above criticism and nor is its chairman. Furthermore, in accepting the appointment to chair the Commission, Erasmus ignored guidelines laid down by the Constitutional Court, which recommended that Judges turn down appointments outside of a court when such positions “create the risk of judicial entanglement in matters of political controversy.”
Nathan Erasmus has gone against this injunction and cannot be protected from the consequences. The commission he agreed to chair is, we contend, unlawful and unconstitutional. It was established by the ANC as a political hit squad to conduct a drawn-out witch-hunt to smear the opposition in the run-up to the 2009 election. The ANC’s purpose in appointing a judge as chair is to provide a veneer of judicial respectability and protection normally accorded by the public to a court of law. This strategy has worked well because many others, besides Die Burger, are treating the commission and its chairman with the deference applicable to a court of law. There is no legal or constitutional reason to do so. And there is no threat to the independence of the judiciary to say so.
There is, however, no doubt that the independence of the Judiciary is being harmed by Nathan Erasmus’s decision to accept appointment to such a political instrument. It is this decision — and not my criticism of it — that harms the independence of the judiciary.
Die Burger is also entirely wrong to suggest that I have a remedy in due legal process. Again Die Burger is confusing the commission with a court. There is no remedy in law from the outcome of a commission. The Commission delivers a report which is nothing more than the opinion of its members. A commission’s report does not have the status of a judgement or the weight of a court behind it. There is no right of appeal against its “opinion” and the “legal processes” that Die Burger states are available to me and the City do not exist. Die Burger made this claim because it was confusing the Commission with a judicial process. This confusion, which is widespread, is the very reason judges should not readily accept invitations by politicians to chair commissions of this type.
If there was any hint of wrongdoing by me or the City, we would have been charged in criminal proceedings instituted by the prosecuting authority if that authority was satisfied that there was a prima facie case that we should answer. The Premier has not used the ordinary judicial process because, despite months of investigation, there is no basis for any charge. So a smear campaign must do instead. That is what the Erasmus Commission is all about.
I will continue to say so because it is the truth and because we have a constitution that protects free speech. This is really the way to defend a “Regstaat”, not by cloaking a witch-hunt in the veneer of judicial respectability.
The Erasmus commission is simply another smear campaign against Zille and the DA. I’m amazed at the stupidity of some people who cannot see this. The city has already been cleared in a seperate commission, one less politicized and more reliable I hasten to add. The EC will just result in the squanerding of more taxpayers money all for some silly ANC-administered smear campaign. If the ANC were actually competent then they wouldn’t have to bother with smear campaigns. But they are NOT, so they resort to petty tactics like this. The ANC are making idiots of those who cannot see their true intentions.
Helen Silly has lost it long time ago. She was in government (Western Cape Minister, nogal!) when there was a spy-gate. Now she is in (local) government, and guess what? Another spygate crops up… This is too obvious! What is worst, is that she tries to run away from it, the same way Richard Nixon did — by trying to discredit the state machinery and substituting it with ‘friendlier’ office-bearers!!! Nixon got a presidential pardon instead of prison. I wonder what Zille will get for her spying on the opposition parties? If the shoe was on the other foot, what would she have said and done if (heavens forbid) the ANC spied on her? (I also noted that she used an alias — Marian — to react here. How can one trust all the reactions when politicians blatantly try to rig public opinion like this?)
Naah, Helen Zille’s lost nothing. She won. Big time. Every one of her suspicions re: the Erasmus Commission has been fully vindicated.
And it serves to prove that one should not simply roll over and play dead at the approach of (whispered tones, please) JUDGE. Especially if the “judge” in question has openly paraded his ANC affections.
Perhaps ANC-appointed “judges” should be counselled to turn down all calls by their politician buddies to chair a “commission” and to deliver a nice, politically-massaged verdict if the judiciary hopes to retain public respect.
Jon // Sep 2, 2008 at 2:01 am
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It is always nice to comment after the fact isn’t it?
Jan Jacobs, would you care to respond now that the Court has delivered its verdict on Erasmus? Suddenly very quiet eh?
[...] in Current Affairs Maybe I owe an apology to Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance? I harshly criticised her earlier this year for challenging the constitutionality of the Erasmus commis… set up by then Premier Ebrahim Rasool, arguing that she appeared shifty and less than honest. I was [...]
Good morning, it is Sunday the 15th March, I was on Friday at the Stellenbosch Univeristy meeting in the Neelsie, I’ve read most of the time your work, but what I saw on Friday was total opp. of what you said about Helen Zille. I saw form ANC to IFP, speaking to the public but their is no one that match Helen Zille, o yes just to remind you, she is the best mayor in the world… I think you are bias, may be because you don’t do botox may be you should get the number of Helen Zille doctor so you could have some… but all being said I still like you, but your bias towards Helen Zille well you know what I guest you know what I will besaying…. VOTE DA, STEM DA, STEM EN WEN, VOTE TO WIN