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
Public hearings on Scorpions
I see public hearings will be held at Parliament on the 5, 6, & 7 August 2008 about the draft legislation that will be abolish the Scorpions. There will also be public hearings in the provinces from Monday 11 August to Friday, 15 August 2008.
It is clear that these hearings will aim to give effect to the recent Constitutional Court judgment in the Merafong case in which the Constitutional Court confirmed again that meaningful public participation was required when Parliament passed important legislation. Parliament will therefore have to manage this process very carefully to vaccinate the legislation against a constitutional challenge.
As the majority pointed out in the Merafong case – following previous precedent – meaningful participation did not require Parliament to follow the suggestions of the public, but merely that it had to be open to be persuaded by such submissions. What was required was for the public hearings not to be “a cynical charade”, but “held in good faith”. There must be “a possibility of change” in the position of the legislature.
There is no authority for the proposition that the views expressed by the public are binding on the legislature if they are in direct conflict with the policies of Government. Government certainly can be expected to be responsive to the needs and wishes of minorities or interest groups, but our constitutional system of government would not be able to function if the legislature were bound by these views. The public participation in the legislative process, which the Constitution envisages, is supposed to supplement and enhance the democratic nature of general elections and majority rule, not to conflict with or even overrule or veto them.
When public hearings are held on the abolition of the Scorpions Parliament will therefore have to listen to a wide range of opinions and if the ANC does its work, it will ensure that some of these opinions will support the abolition of the Scorpions and when they eventually pass the legislation it will be very difficult to challenge on the grounds that there was no meaningful public participation in the adoption of this legislation.
So, farewell Scorpions. Just another institution destroyed to serve the short-term political interest of what Xolela Mangcu calls the new fascists. The only way to deal with this kind of short-sighted and destructive arrogance on the part of the ruling party is to vote them out of office. But this will not happen next year because there is no credible party to vote for.
