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
Against the narrative of the police using force only as a last resort, however, a growing body of evidence suggests that rather than being an act of self-defence, the killings were part of a premeditated plan to stop the strike. Interviews with miners point to the police using barbed wire to ‘kettle’ the strikers, who were then hunted down and shot as they attempted to escape from police gunfire and teargas, while wounded survivors were run over by armoured vehicles. Additionally, allegations have emerged which suggest that the autopsies of the dead prove that most were killed while fleeing. There is also recent evidence, found by The Daily Maverick, that 14 of the miners may have been murdered by police 300 metres away from the main site of the clashes at close range and with little sign of struggle. Furthermore, evidence of systematic police torture against detained strikers in the last week hardly portrays the SAPS as an institution which only uses violence as a last resort. – Christopher McMichael at Think Africa Press
