Cape Town - A high court judge has lambasted a Stellenbosch municipal official alleged to have used municipal law enforcement to prevent family members and caregivers access to initiates at the municipal-owned Ida Valley Nature Reserve.
Judge Daniel Thulare said acting Stellenbosch municipal manager Anna Maria de Beer demonstrated a “refusal to understand African culture in general” and ruled that the use of law enforcement in the incident was “heavy handed and unlawful”.
Judge Thulare was ruling in a case where Rashid Makhubela, a principal overseeing the Basotho-Mahlubi Metro NPO initiation school in the municipal-owned Ida Valley Nature Reserve, had gone to court after law enforcement officers denied him access.
Stellenbosch municipality opposed the application on the grounds that as the owner of the property, the municipality had a statutory obligation in terms of the Veld Fires Forest Act (VFFA), and that the restriction of access was a step taken to mitigate the risk of veld fires on the property.
Municipal spokesperson Stuart Grobbelaar said the municipality was studying the judgment. The initiation school began on November 25, 2022 until the first week in January 2023.
On December 3, 2022, Makhubela was denied access to the site by law enforcement despite telling them he had received a report that one of the initiates was coughing blood and needed medical care.
Makhubela argued in court that the first two weeks was a very sensitive period for the initiation, necessitating elders to be present to oversee the processes.
This was aimed at avoiding preventable deaths and botched circumcisions.
De Beer had told the court that the municipality was provided with names of “principals and caregivers” when the initiation started on November 25;
Makhubela’s name was not on the list.
The judge said De Beer was not prepared to give Makhubela an audience and had “simply issued decrees … without understanding the true facts”.
Closing off the area and preventing access to initiates, deprived Makhubela as the principal, family members and care-givers of control and power over the site and the initiates.
“It is not for De Beer to question the need for traditional healers at an initiation school.”
De Beer was in need of social context training, the judge said, and clearly lacks equal concern and respect expected of a municipal manager in a transitional phase from apartheid to an ideal constitutional state, he said.
“This call is necessary to be heeded, urgently, before she does a lot of damage to the project of nation building.”
Judge Thulare ordered the municipality to restore and grant unrestricted access to Makhubela, care-givers, parents and family members of initiates as well as medical personnel, including traditional healers and herbalists.