Even as we celebrate Human Rights Day on Saturday, the institutions that protect us are troubled, writes Janet Smith.
Johannesburg - The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has a surprisingly quirky slogan and logo. It reads: “Poised to strike against corruption” and features a cobra with its hood up in the centre of a spirited yellow swirl.
But there’s nothing particularly upbeat about the corruption watchdog, one of our most vital institutions in terms of how we keep our freedoms and values intact as a nation. The response to events there has felt symptomatic of the deep divides our constitutional democracy faces on Human Rights Day on Saturday.
The SIU’s former head, advocate Vas Soni – who was appointed to the post in 2013 by President Jacob Zuma – resigned in January as his wife is desperately ill.
While no one questioned Soni’s love for his spouse, there were debates around the pressure of having to preside over the unit’s investigation into Nkandla.
Soni admitted to eNCA that his job had been “a serious challenge” and indeed, there must have been some soul-searching before the submission of the SIU’s report into Nkandla to Parliament in September last year. Commissioned by the president to investigate, the unit found forensic blame with Zuma’s architect Minenhle Makhanya for costs that went over and above security upgrades. These could reach more than R150 million.
But that has troubled ordinary people who were not sure what to believe since that document was submitted after the Public Protector’s Secure in Comfort report, also into Nkandla, indicated that Zuma and his family had unduly benefited. The report from the public protector suggested the president should negotiate with the government around a resolution. Zuma told Parliament this month he was awaiting the outcome of further investigations before he would accept any responsibility.
That kind of wrangling over who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes to Nkandla, one of the country’s most contentious talking points, has hustled the SIU and the public protector into unacceptable discomfort as an independent statutory body and a Chapter Nine institution set up to guard our democracy.
In the SIU’s case, even more oversight is being sought for the president and the minister of justice, despite its stipulated independence. This is worrying. In the public protector's case, Zuma has described it as an “ombudsman”, demoting its role.
While it is institutions like these that should be celebrated unequivocally on Human Rights Day, as their work directly affects the safety of our freedoms as citizens, there’s more than a suspicion of interference. There’s genuine fear.
The Hawks, which target corruption among other responsibilities, and which replaced the Scorpions after Zuma came into power in 2009, are also in a mire that affects us.
The Scorpions, which fell under the National Prosecuting Authority, had previously investigated the president for fraud, and there is still a view that their operations were shut down after political interference. The Hawks fall under the SAPS.
Now Hawks head Anwa Dramat is under a cloud along with fellow Hawks general Shadrack Sibiya, for their alleged involvement in a rendition action in Zimbabwe. And Robert McBride, whose political career as an ANC veteran was seemingly set back on track when he was appointed head of the Independent Investigative Police Directorate last year, is suspended after his unit cleared Dramat.
Dramat’s supporters believe he was suspended not for the suspected renditions, but for investigating cases like Nkandla, which are close to the political elite.
Meanwhile, after Pansy Tlakula eventually took her leave of the Independent Electoral Commission late last year, following the public protector finding irregularities in the procurement of the commission’s head office, a new concern rose.
Vuma Glen Mashinini, a special projects adviser to the presidency, was recommended to replace her.
So, questions about independence loom ever larger, with the same undercurrent: suspicions that the executive under Zuma has too much of an impact on institutions that protect our rights. And: how much of an influence does the ANC’s leadership have, despite the split between party and state being well defined in our constitution?
And so there’s an edge to Saturday’s celebrations, even though the hallowed ground on which the public protector, the Constitutional Court and the auditor-general’s office operate, is intact. Those vital components of our democracy have fought hard to maintain their independence, and this has helped keep our confidence.
But we can’t ignore how those bigger questions affect our weight as one of the world’s great liberated nations, where human rights lie at the core.
According to The Economist’s Intelligence Unit, which publishes one of the less controversial development indices, South Africa is a flawed democracy, along with India, Botswana, Israel, Brazil, Ghana and more than 30 other nations. We’re not doing as badly as Malawi, Uganda or Venezuela, but we’re not as advanced as the Scandinavian countries which see Norway in the number one spot for democracies. North Korea is at rock-bottom.
It’s not only politics but also economic crises that can degrade countries from one category to another.
But, like most others, this index dominantly looks at pluralism, civil liberties and political culture. Its big questions are: elections being free and fair; the security of voters; the influence of foreign powers on the government and the capability of civil servants to implement policies.
It is surely the final question that impinges the most negatively on South Africa’s outcome in such a survey. It is so often the lack of implementation of otherwise good policies that impacts on the defence of our human rights.
Just this week, members of Parliament’s standing committee on appropriations proposed that some senior civil servants be refused bonuses after departments underspent by billions. This shows that it’s not only corruption that continues to gnaw at our freedom, but also incapacity.
In the background, the criminal justice system and public protector’s budgets, for example, are so constrained that it is remarkable that good work is done at all. Meanwhile, the revenue system is all but in tatters after scandals, linked again to Zuma and Nkandla, that have mired it in recent months.
It’s also vital to look at press freedom as a guardian of our human rights, and although the respected Reporters Without Borders gives South Africa a high enough ranking, there have been incidents already this year that disturb the picture.
Certainly, we are nowhere close to, say, Nord-Kivu in the DRC where there has been almost total censorship. Yet press freedom, a constitutional right, is not completely safe. Earlier this month, the South African National Editors’ Forum strongly condemned “thuggish behaviour” by cops who manhandled a journalist outside Parliament and forced him to delete pictures from his camera. This happened two hours before Zuma was due to answer questions, and is in contravention of police standing orders and promises by national commissioner Riah Phiyega that such illegal behaviour would stop.
We could also see press censorship in the signal jamming incident before Zuma’s State of the Nation Address last month.
It was journalists in the gallery who started the chant: “Bring back the signal.”
Their protests indeed led to the signal being restored but Parliament made it clear it would always apply its own broadcasting policy not to show disruptions, claiming this is consistent with international best practice.
And it’s not only when there’s government business that journalists come under threat. Reporters were also intimidated and, on at least one occasion, forced to delete pictures during January’s fresh round of xenophobic violence in Soweto, for example. And that kind of event, sadly not uncommon, makes it difficult for our media to reveal human rights abuses.
So, these are troubled times in which we have to try and remember Nelson Mandela’s words in his inaugural address nearly 21 years ago: “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.”
* Janet Smith is executive editor of The Star.
The Star