Zuma's attitude to rule of law about to be revealed

09 July 2015 - 02:18 By The Times Editorial

Is the ANC committed to South Africa's constitutional democracy and the rule of law? The question would have been dismissed as an absurdity 21 years ago. After all, the ANC played a pivotal role in ushering in our democratic dispensation and in helping to frame a constitutional order that has made us the envy of the world.But the ANC of Nelson Mandela is very different to the one led by Jacob Zuma.Over the past eight years citizens have watched in dismay as corruption and nepotism took root in the public sector, the graft-busting Scorpions were disbanded, the independence of the National Prosecuting Authority and other critical state institutions was eroded and the public protector was undermined.While enjoying the fruits of democracy, a free media and the many opportunities presented by an open society, we have also had to bear witness to government departments brazenly ignoring court orders and ANC heavyweights railing against the judiciary.We have heard a party luminary branding Constitutional Court judges ''counter-revolutionaries'', our police minister suggesting that some judges are corrupt and our higher education minister saying that certain courts have over-reached their authority.We have even had to endure the ANC secretary-general making the preposterous claim that the Cape Town High Court and the Pretoria High Court were undermining the work of the government after Pretoria violated a court order that a genocide suspect be prevented from leaving the country.This is the climate that no doubt prompted Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and other senior judges to ask for a meeting with Zuma to deal with ''general gratuitous criticism'' of the judiciary by cabinet ministers and politicians.Now that he has been called out, Zuma would be well advised to recommit the government and the ANC to the rule of law, and to call off his Rottweilers when the courts do their job...

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