Judges are not purest of them all

Some in the country’s severely untransformed judiciary have taken the saying ‘sober like a judge’ a little bit too far. They seem to think that judges are holier than thou. This after some prominent members of the judiciary strongly opposing proposed regulations for judicial financial disclosure as unconstitutional. This is amazing given the amount of cases where judges have decided that individuals should disclose their financial interests by virtue of being public figures.

In one of my previous articles I asked if “AfriForum (was) a tool used by Afrikaner fundamentalists to exploit the grossly un-transformed judiciary to run this country in favour of their narrow, sectarian interests”. I also probed the source of AfriForum’s funding. These questions were not raised out of an idle mind. They were raised because of my suspicions around the link between some controversial court outcomes and AfriForum’s wild antics.

What is it that members of the bench want to hide from us? Is it some sinister payments from underground structures to sway this country to a particular direction? Only time will tell.

Independent body Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) warns in its statement that “conflicts of interest can undermine the integrity of any public or private institution, and public confidence in it”.

With these grumbling murmurs from the judges, there is no doubt that the integrity of our judiciary is already tainted. Why want to be treated like a saint of you can’t disclose all your interests, financial and otherwise? No way, I say!

It was late last year when the General Secretary of the SACP, Blade Nzimande, warned us against the dangers of this country being a “judicial dictatorship”. Nzimande based his warning on parts of the ruling that set aside the state president’s appointment of Menzi Simelane as the head of national prosecutions.

In this ruling, penned by Judge Mahomed Navsa, the judiciary is reffered to as ‘the people’. In one part the ruling reads: “Having regard to what is stated in earlier paragraphs about the importance of the NPA and the office of the NDPP (National Director of Public Prosecutions), it is the least that ‘we the people’ can expect”. Like Nzimande, I maintain that the judiciary are NOT THE PEOPLE. Even if the judiciary were performing its functions for the people, or in the interests of the common good, they shall never qualify to be the people.

But in any case, the fact here is that the judiciary, or those using it for their interests, do regard it as the people, or as in charge of the state.

It is because of this perception that our country seems to be co-governed by judges. We are a constitutional democracy and the elected leaders must, with the assistance from other spheres of the state, be allowed to rule this nation. We are not a judicial state.

There is a very calculated attempt from those with money (capitalists) to use the judicial system to reverse the gains made since the 1994 sunshine. These antagonists are aware that our society has trust and confidence in the judges and people are unlikely to question the motives of members of the bench. But a string of controversial judicial decisions, coupled with this weird refusal to disclose interests, shows that all that glitters is not really gold.

Judges are human beings and are, therefore, susceptible to abuse and misuse.

It is for this reason that the judicial sphere of the state, like the executive and the legislative wings, must be in constant watch to mitigate possible misuse. Judges are not the purest of us all. They do deserve a sufficient amount of respect for the important work they are doing. But this is no licence for us turning a blind eye to their interests. So, like all other public figures, judges and their families must disclose all their financial interests to the public.