Precedence for the President
Terence Pillay looks at the recent Constitutional Court ruling sees President Jacob Zuma finally paying back the money for upgrades to his private residence, Nkandla
It’s been an interesting few weeks in our country. And it all culminated in the not-so-great news that President Jacob Zuma will not be impeached. Social media went wild with people expressing anger, disappointment and shock. But was the verdict that surprising? I mean you would have had to have every member of every other party plus 117 ANC members to vote for the impeachment and that was never going to happen.
So how did we get here?
Last week, the country’s highest court found that President Jacob Zuma had violated his oath of office and failed to uphold and defend the constitution in the Nkandla matter.
This, in my opinion, is good because it reinforces the primacy of the constitution as the supreme law of the land. It also clarifies – and a lot of people have been debating and certainly parliament has been treating it as a grey area – the power of the public protector.
When she says: “I’ve done an investigation and I’ve written a report and made recommendations,” the national assembly under the magical wand of Princess Baleka Mbete should not say: “Thank you very much for your recommendations, but we’ll just do whatever we want to.”
And in a ground-breaking ruling, the constitutional court has said “Actually you can’t do whatever you want. You have to uphold the findings of the investigation.” What Thuli Madonsela is simply saying is that she has done the investigation (done her job) and recommends the punitive aspect of the investigation.
I think the thing most people are excited about is the fact that Mogoeng Mogoeng was believed to be a Jacob Zuma lackey and he turned out not to be so. And these critics had to eat humble pie because they thought Zuma had appointed his friend to be the Chief Justice of the constitutional court, and it turned out that the law meant more than friendship. We must also remember that it was eleven people, who were appointed by the president, who reached this verdict, so that says a lot of the process.
The fact of the matter is that there was the perception that the President thought he was above the law and this ruling makes him acutely aware that nobody is. The public protector did an investigation and made a ruling and he proceeded to ignore that and instead put together a task team, comprised of the police minister and other people who he appointed, to do the same investigation and come up with their own findings, which he was happy with because it suited him. And he showed if you choose your task team, you can get whatever result you want.
Except the opposition was not just going to sit back and accept this.
Zuma has to pay back a reasonable portion of that money spent on Nkandla. The treasury now, through the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan has sixty days to determine the amount of money for which he is liable and he has forty five days to pay it back.
I have to admit, while I only believe in parts of our democracy, I do believe in the constitutionality of our state – the constitution is the supreme law. And people, through the public protector, have access to protection from the state or any other authority that is not serving their interests.
Plus we need to take cognisance of the role of the chapter 9 institutions of the constitution, like the public protector, the Human Rights Commission and so on, that were set up to protect people of abuse by the state, police and other organisations – as well as individuals. So if I, like Penny Sparrow, come along and say something extremely racist to you, then I can go to the South African Human Rights Commission and lay a complaint for investigation. I have protection.
But if you look at Zuma’s actions, he was perceived to believe himself to be above the law and as a result of not holding up the constitution, he faced possible impeachment. And this would have been the worst outcome for him, because it means he would have lost his pension and other perks that come with being a “former head of state”.
I mean, look at Bill Clinton. He went from being the president of one of, if not, the most powerful countries in the world to a celebrity speaker or could possibly be the next first husband.
So the DA and other opposition parties didn’t have enough votes because the majority was held by the ANC as expected and the national executive council are not going to recall him because it would rip the ANC apart ahead of the local government elections – it would be a very bad move.
And while that leaves a sour taste in our mouths, we need to hold on to the fact that there has been a landmark decision that does give us hope for the future, even if it’s quite dim.
Do you still believe in our democracy?
So how did we get here?
Last week, the country’s highest court found that President Jacob Zuma had violated his oath of office and failed to uphold and defend the constitution in the Nkandla matter.
This, in my opinion, is good because it reinforces the primacy of the constitution as the supreme law of the land. It also clarifies – and a lot of people have been debating and certainly parliament has been treating it as a grey area – the power of the public protector.
When she says: “I’ve done an investigation and I’ve written a report and made recommendations,” the national assembly under the magical wand of Princess Baleka Mbete should not say: “Thank you very much for your recommendations, but we’ll just do whatever we want to.”
And in a ground-breaking ruling, the constitutional court has said “Actually you can’t do whatever you want. You have to uphold the findings of the investigation.” What Thuli Madonsela is simply saying is that she has done the investigation (done her job) and recommends the punitive aspect of the investigation.
I think the thing most people are excited about is the fact that Mogoeng Mogoeng was believed to be a Jacob Zuma lackey and he turned out not to be so. And these critics had to eat humble pie because they thought Zuma had appointed his friend to be the Chief Justice of the constitutional court, and it turned out that the law meant more than friendship. We must also remember that it was eleven people, who were appointed by the president, who reached this verdict, so that says a lot of the process.
The fact of the matter is that there was the perception that the President thought he was above the law and this ruling makes him acutely aware that nobody is. The public protector did an investigation and made a ruling and he proceeded to ignore that and instead put together a task team, comprised of the police minister and other people who he appointed, to do the same investigation and come up with their own findings, which he was happy with because it suited him. And he showed if you choose your task team, you can get whatever result you want.
Except the opposition was not just going to sit back and accept this.
Zuma has to pay back a reasonable portion of that money spent on Nkandla. The treasury now, through the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan has sixty days to determine the amount of money for which he is liable and he has forty five days to pay it back.
I have to admit, while I only believe in parts of our democracy, I do believe in the constitutionality of our state – the constitution is the supreme law. And people, through the public protector, have access to protection from the state or any other authority that is not serving their interests.
Plus we need to take cognisance of the role of the chapter 9 institutions of the constitution, like the public protector, the Human Rights Commission and so on, that were set up to protect people of abuse by the state, police and other organisations – as well as individuals. So if I, like Penny Sparrow, come along and say something extremely racist to you, then I can go to the South African Human Rights Commission and lay a complaint for investigation. I have protection.
But if you look at Zuma’s actions, he was perceived to believe himself to be above the law and as a result of not holding up the constitution, he faced possible impeachment. And this would have been the worst outcome for him, because it means he would have lost his pension and other perks that come with being a “former head of state”.
I mean, look at Bill Clinton. He went from being the president of one of, if not, the most powerful countries in the world to a celebrity speaker or could possibly be the next first husband.
So the DA and other opposition parties didn’t have enough votes because the majority was held by the ANC as expected and the national executive council are not going to recall him because it would rip the ANC apart ahead of the local government elections – it would be a very bad move.
And while that leaves a sour taste in our mouths, we need to hold on to the fact that there has been a landmark decision that does give us hope for the future, even if it’s quite dim.
Do you still believe in our democracy?
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.