Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
Public Protector fails to be honest
In the matter before us it transpired that the Public Protector does not fully understand her constitutional duty to be impartial and to perform her functions without fear, favour or prejudice. She failed to disclose in her report that she had a meeting with the Presidency on 25 April 2017 and again on 7 June 2017. As we have already pointed out above, it was only in her answering affidavit that she admitted the meeting on 25 April 2017, but she was totally silent on the second meeting which took place on 7 June 2017. She failed to realise the importance of explaining her actions in this regard, more particularly the last meeting she had with the Presidency. This last meeting is also veiled in obscurity if one takes into account that no transcripts or any minutes thereof have been made available. This all took place under circumstances where she failed to afford the reviewing parties a similar opportunity to meet with her. The Public Protector failed to make a full disclosure when she pretended, in her answering affidavit, that she was acting on advice received with regard to averments relating to economics prior to finalising her report.
