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
On humanity and racism
What sort of community is envisioned by the first-person plural ‘we?’ What do ‘we’ within this community hold in ‘common’ and how is that holding-in-‘common’ socially and politically organized? And what is meant by ‘humanity’ and its corollaries: ‘the human,’ ‘humanism,’ ‘humane?’ The anti-racist invocation of ‘our’ ‘common’ ‘humanity’ is evidence of a belief in – or more likely a longing for – a state of being that is deeper than and anterior to the imposition of race. If ‘we’ are all ‘human’ after all, then surely racism and racist violence are illegitimate; it will not do for one ‘human’ to oppress, exploit, torture, kill another.
