Quote of the week
Mr Zuma is no ordinary litigant. He is the former President of the Republic, who remains a public figure and continues to wield significant political influence, while acting as an example to his supporters… He has a great deal of power to incite others to similarly defy court orders because his actions and any consequences, or lack thereof, are being closely observed by the public. If his conduct is met with impunity, he will do significant damage to the rule of law. As this Court noted in Mamabolo, “[n]o one familiar with our history can be unaware of the very special need to preserve the integrity of the rule of law”. Mr Zuma is subject to the laws of the Republic. No person enjoys exclusion or exemption from the sovereignty of our laws… It would be antithetical to the value of accountability if those who once held high office are not bound by the law.
Secretary of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector including Organs of State v Zuma and Others (CCT 52/21) [2021] ZACC 18
Anton Fagan is a law professor at the University of Cape Town. We remember him in academic dress marching with TAC for the dismissal of then-Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. But speaking generally he has never understood the Constitution, the society in which lives or his privilege. He eschews context and people in his scholarship. Schooled in the formalism and steeped in the pedantry of a law professor, he came to the defence of DA leader and Western Cape Premier when she viciously and personally attacked Janet Love of the Legal Resources Centre as a “dumped cadre”. Love failed to meet Zille’s standards of independence or integrity as a Human Rights Commissioner after that body found her party’s City of Cape Town administration to have violated the Constitution. – Zackie Achmat on the Writing Rights Blog
