Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
Judge Kathy Satchwell on the state of South Gauteng High Court
I am a judge of the high court of SA based at the Johannesburg court (South Gauteng Division). I have read (Sunday Independent, October 24) the comments by Tlali Tlali, spokesperson for the Department of Justice, to the effect that the facts presented, and the opinions expressed, by Judge Neels Claassen of this division, concerning the state of the library at the Johannesburg High Court, are neither accurate, true nor well founded. It is suggested that Judge Claassen made comments which are not only “false” but “glaringly false”.
I am qualified to comment. First , I use that library to the extent that it remains possible. I can personally bear witness to much, if not all, of that to which Judge Claassen has brought our attention. He is correct — the library no longer functions to the professional standard expected in a high court, let alone in a private law firm or group of advocates’ chambers.
Second , I know the hard work and enthusiasm which Judge Claassen has brought, over many years, to maintenance of the library, which exists for the benefit of judges, practitioners and the public. Neither his personal knowledge nor his integrity can, in any way, be doubted.
Since it appears that Mr Tlali has no real knowledge of the state of affairs at the Johannesburg High Court, I would invite him to view the following: air-conditioning in courts operates erratically, if at all, with the result that there is insufficient oxygen in courtrooms requiring concentration and intellectual endeavour; elevators which frequently don’t work, requiring the public and practitioners to climb flights of stairs; lavatories which are often unfit for use; a telephone system without voice-mail and where telephones cannot communicate to adjacent offices; electronic security which has not operated for years and security which is either non- existent or inadequate; stairs begrimed with dirt and “cleaners” who are not provided with scrubbing brushes or cleansing liquids; archives where records lie in no particular order on shelves and sometimes on the floor; a registrar’s office where we are daily advised that court files containing pleadings are “missing”; inadequate and outdated computer technology; sometimes shortages of stationery; some judges working for lengthy periods without computers. The list is endless.
Litigating members of the advocates and attorneys profession, the litigating public and members of the judiciary can attest to these inadequacies.
No one with any experience of this high court can dispute that the entire system has been creaking to a halt over the last few years. It is thanks to a few dedicated persons, such as Judge Claassen, that the biggest and busiest high court in the country continues to creak at all.
Kathleen Satchwell
Johannesburg
