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 This Land is Ours
The Land is Ours is Ngcukaitobi’s first book, and this reviewer sincerely urges that it should not be his last. His suggestion that the answers to the land question and restitution lie within the confines of the law, even if the law itself alone is insufficient for justice, is a useful provocation, especially to those with ready access to the levers of law. However, in the meantime, so-called land invasions by poor, landless Black people continue, as do their evictions by the state’s anti-land-invasion units, and the destruction of the homes they’ve made on the vast tracts of open land owned by individuals, companies and the state.
