An honourable person would apologise and resign from the bench

We are sitting with leaders who cannot see the shame in what they do and insist on going on in their offices as if nothing has happened. Leaders are found guilty of the most offensive crimes but, instead of stepping down, they stand brazenly before us and vow to fight the system. They have no shame.

Worse, we have, as a country, pushed down our standards for public morality. In South Africa today, the scum of the earth is allowed in the judiciary and in the highest echelons of our public life.

Earlier this month, Judge Nkola Motata was found guilty of driving drunk. The trial exposed him as not just a drunk but as a law-breaker, a liar, a racist and a bully as well.

Magistrate Desmond Nair found Motata had used racial slurs, including calling metro police officers who arrested him “boere”. He used the phrase “f*** you” at least 10 times and could not even spell his own name. Remember, Motata had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

After such a conviction, any honourable man or woman would have been engulfed by shame. They would realise their actions had defiled their office and the trust the public had placed in them. An honourable person would apologise and resign from the bench immediately.

Not Motata, the drunk racist. Instead, walking out of court, he said: “I’ll never say anything. You’ll never hear a word from me.”

He holds all of us in such contempt that he does not feel an apology is in order. He feels entitled to the position of judge and does not realise how much damage he has inflicted on the judiciary, and his colleagues, by his actions. He is so shameless that he has indicated he wants his job back. A man who utters racist slurs is now the defender of our non-racial Constitution. Where is the shame?

Yesterday, former National Intelligence Agency director-general Manala Manzini was exposed on the front page of the Sunday Times as a wife-batterer. Incredibly, he freely admitted to this and said he did it because “she refused to cook or iron my clothes”.

I mean, where is the shame? Does he realise how Neanderthal his utterances actually are? How does he look his new wife, his friends, his community, the country, in the eye and consider himself a man? Where is the shame?

The Manzini and Motata stories point to the same malaise: no sense of shame.

Caster Semenya has been grossly manipulated, lied to, humiliated and let down. I fear for her well- being today and urge the government to intervene. She should be on suicide watch.

We now know that Semenya was let down by one man and his team, and that is Athletics SA president Leonard Chuene. Chuene has for weeks told the world that neither he nor his team knew about the gender testing of Semenya. He claimed that it was “racist” South Africans who were behind her gender testing.

Chuene knew all along what was happening. He was copied on e-mails authorising her testing prior to the trip to the Berlin championships, where she won gold. On Saturday he admitted that he refused to accept the advice of Athletics SA team doctor Harold Adams to withdraw Semenya from the championships.

“I now realise that it was an error of judgment and I would like to apologise unconditionally. As president of ASA, I will not, however, apologise for allowing Caster Semenya to run or for protecting her privacy,” Chuene said.

It is incredible that this man still sits in his office today. He thinks lying for a month — and causing untold havoc with the country’s emotions and the life of an 18-year- old — is not a matter over which he should resign?

Only in Zimbabwe is such shamelessness acceptable. If Chuene were an honourable and decent human being, he would have resigned by now. Anywhere else in the world, Chuene, on failing to resign, would have been called in by the president of the country and asked to do the honourable thing.

Not here. Chuene will be with us tomorrow, next year and in 10 years. What of poor, defenceless Semenya and the country that was lied to? Semenya’s life will be in tatters, and this country will be awash with shameless individuals who will look to the likes of Motata, Manzini and Chuene as role models.