BOOK EXTRACT: The DA’s Glynnis Breytenbach chats to us, PLUS an extract from her book
Do I look stressed?’
The Honourable Glynnis Breytenbach looks as cool as cool can be. In her office in the parliamentary precinct, Glynnis has one of those chairs that reclines almost to the horizontal, and she’s leaning right back with her feet resting on the desk drawers.
She’s a member of parliament for the DA, and shadow minister for justice – a position she’s held since 2014. (Former FAIRLADY editor Dene Smuts was her predecessor.) This is not the reason she’s in the public eye, though. Glynnis first hit the headlines towards the end of her tenure at the National Prosecuting Authority, where she’d worked for 26 years. It was ‘the best job in the world’, she says. There, she earned a reputation as a formidable state prosecutor.
But then she bumped heads with the NPA head honchos. When she told them she’d take them to the High Court on review for dropping the charges of fraud and corruption against former police crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli, she was suspended – ‘for madeup shit’, she says. This was followed by a disciplinary hearing, which was opened to the media at the behest of Glynnis and her legal counsel, as they felt this was the best way of ensuring that it would be fair. She was cleared of all 16 charges.
The NPA announced that it would appeal. This time, she’s being charged with having unauthorised access to, and modifying, the official contents of her work computer. Under cross-examination in the Magistrate’s Court in October, Glynnis responded that she’d had the hard drive duplicated as she believed that the NPA
was not above tampering with, and manipulating, its contents after she had handed it in.
And that’s where Glynnis is at today. Reason enough to feel a bit anxious, we’d say.
‘The trial doesn’t bother me in the least,’ she says. ‘I hold the view now, as I did then, that I’ve done nothing dishonest or criminal. My standards are so much higher than theirs, and I have no difficulty with my own standards. I believe we have a great justice system and I believe in the outcomes of our justice system. I fully expect to be acquitted.’
Glynnis says the law is a good equaliser, because it works the same for all of us. ‘The law is there for everybody. I am not above it, nor is anybody else.’ So she’s quite happy to submit to the legal process, and takes issue with the general tendency to take the easy way out.
‘People often say, “This corruption is dreadful. What are you doing about it?” But most of them, to my horror, have either paid or are willing to pay a bribe to get out of a traffic fine. And that is nothing but corruption.’
Glynnis argues that if we take care of the ‘little acts’ of corruption, corruption on a larger scale will die out. Her logic is simple: ‘If you stop paying bribes, then nobody can accept the bribe. If you take away the market, then the dealer has no place to offload his goods. We all have to say: “It stops here. It stops with me.”’
And if that means you get schlepped to your police station rather than getting off with a bribe?
‘Then be schlepped to the goddamn police station, put in the shit time. Sit in your cell and deal with the crap. But to pay the 50 bucks, that’s wrong.’
She’s right. And I’m starting to understand why she says her standards are high. I ask her if she’d call someone out for something relatively minor, like throwing a cigarette out of the car window, or dropping a chip packet on the pavement. Litterbugs probably don’t really think they’re doing anything wrong, I say. But, says Glynnis: ‘Do you see anybody dropping chip packets in their own home? Why not? Because then they have to clean it up. Why do they do it? They do it because they think they can get away with it. Of course it’s wrong!’
And she’d definitely call them out – ‘I do it all the time!’ she says.
This brings to mind one of the anecdotes from her memoir, Rule of Law, which her publishers persuaded her to write. Her condition was that someone else do the actual writing, and that fell to Nechama Brodie, freelance reporter and head of TRI Facts, the research
‘If you stop paying bribes, then nobody can accept the bribe. If you take away the market, then the dealer has no place to offload his goods. We all have to say: “It stops here, it stops with me.”’
and training division of independent fact-checking agency Africa Check.
‘I sat on my pool deck, drank vast quantities of wine and answered her questions, basically,’ says Glynnis.
The book is interspersed with perspectives from various people who know Glynnis well – ‘all Nechama’s idea’. One of her former colleagues at the NPA, Jan Ferreira, said Glynnis’s office in Pretoria afforded her a good view of the street, so she could easily see when people skipped off early. And she’d call them out, of course. She says she dislikes having to discipline people but is, unsurprisingly, a big fan of discipline.
‘I knew who the culprits were. You always do. And from around 3.30ish, when I knew people would start going home, I’d watch them drive out, give them five minutes, then phone and say, “There’s a dreadfully urgent matter we need to discuss, if you could come and see me.” And they were all quite scared of me, so they’d never have said, “Shit, I’m already halfway home.” You only do it once or twice and then they stop.’
Here in Cape Town, she has a much better view from her office. It’s a bluesky day today, and the view over to the main Parliamentary buildings, Table Mountain, and Lion’s Head is framed by leafy oaks. ‘I must say, I often look at that mountain and say,
sjoe, it’s a really nice day to not be in the office!’
But she doesn’t give in to the temptation, unlike many of her fellow parliamentarians: unfortunately, there are plenty of slackers at Parliament too. ‘As an MP, you can either do the job properly or you can get away with doing very little at all, if you’re so inclined.’ If you miss 30 consecutive days, they start docking your pay, Glynnis explains. ‘There are many MPs – 10s of them – who have missed that number of days. The taxpayer pays you to be there every time the National Assembly sits. That is, after all, your job. But they just don’t pitch.’ lynnis has a work ethic second to none, and doesn’t seem to relate to doing things in slow-mo (let alone not at all). ‘I can’t imagine why you’d want to spend eight or 10 hours a day sitting doing bugger all,’ she says.
So how does parliamentary work compare to her previous job, where 18-hour days were the norm for her?
‘I loved absolutely every second of prosecuting. But I don’t miss it. I love this job.’
Having said that, she does find aspects of it ‘soul-destroyingly boring’.
‘Anyone who watches the National Assembly in session on the Parliament channel can understand that. There’s no joy in that kind of work.’
But there’s more to it than that.
‘There’s a lot of legislative work to be done, and it’s a big challenge and a huge privilege to be able to attempt to ensure decent legislation is passed.’
Done properly, this takes a lot of reading.
‘Just the preparation for this week’s work is probably five or six lever arch files like that one,’ she says, pointing to the bulging file between us on her desk. [Perhaps a hint for me to get going so she can get on with it?] They have parliamentary researchers who do the research. ‘You get it on Friday, or over the weekend. You don’t have to read it, you can wing it, but then you’re not getting in-depth engagement with the subject matter. You really need to
‘If people don’t perform, punish them. You don’t have to suck up all this nonsense for 22 years. You know what you want. Make it happen.’
do your own independent research to prepare properly and make sure that you master it.’ And that’s just the legislative work.
She’s also the chairperson of the federal legal commission for the DA. ‘So I do all the disciplinary work – not on my own – I’m in a committee of 30.’ (These are disciplinary issues within the party. Strikes me they’ve got the right person for the job.)
Then there’s the constituency work. Glynnis explains that all MPs are constituency heads somewhere. ‘You can do a lot for people. It’s a great platform for trying to help people. You can’t help everybody all of the time, but you can certainly help a lot of the people a lot of the time.’
Glynnis serves the area of Moot, in Pretoria. ‘There’s always something on: information tables, meetings to
In Rule of Law, she describes the ANC as a one-man kleptocracy: ‘They have sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is Jacob Zuma.’
engage with voters.’ Her constituency cuts across different classes, all with different needs. ‘Some people don’t have proper basic services yet. We’re trying to get those installed. So there’s lots to do.’ Living in Cape Town, serving a Pretoria constituency – how does that work? ‘I go on the early flight on a Saturday and I come back on a late flight, and on Monday I go on the early flight and come back on the late flight.’ That’s not logistically optimal, but having read her memoir I think I know the reason. Sure enough: ‘Because my dogs are here.’ (The second chapter of Rule of Law is titled, ‘Animals are nicer than people.’) Glynnis has pics of ‘the three most beautiful dogs in the world’ in her office. ‘That German shepherd there, the big one, is Rafi. She’s nine. And the Australian cattle dog is Frisco, like the coffee. I didn’t name him; he was a gift. And this German shepherd is eight months old and her name is Keiko.’
They’re unusual names… ‘Rafi is named after Rafael Nadal, but she’s a girl, so she’s Rafi. Keiko is named after Kei Nishikori, the number one Japanese player and number 14 in the world [at the time of writing].’
Glynnis loves her tennis. Chapter 18, titled ‘Sixteen-love’ is about the disciplinary hearing. When the first witness – ‘a self-important creep who thought that the world revolved on his little axis’ – stood up and introduced his unit as the custodian of ethics in the NPA, Glynnis said she wanted to throw up her breakfast: ‘It was so pompous and, of course, utter rubbish.’ Right then, she stopped listening. ‘It was clear that if I continued to pay attention to the testimony I would either misbehave horribly or have a stroke, because it was all so dishonest and unbelievably stupid.’
Fortunately, the US Open was on, so she live-streamed it on her computer. And sixteen-love refers to the number of charges against her, with not one holding up.
‘I like Rafael Nadal and Kei Nishikori because they are good sportsmen, they are tenacious, and they always try their best. They win well and they lose equally well, which is important.’
What about Serena? ‘She’s great. But I’m not going to call my dog Serena. I don’t like the name. But she’s a superstar in every respect.’
Weekends taken up with flying up and down for work, fat files to plough through – none of this makes for the work-life balance many of us aspire to. ‘That’s just crap. If you have a real job, then there is no me-time. And if you have a real job that you enjoy, that is your me-time.’ She does find time for the gym. ‘I go at five in the morning and then it’s done; you’re awake. And the whole day is waiting to be dealt with. It beats the hell out of lying in bed till 10 o’clock!’
Sounds like the kind of civil servant we need. And in 1994, the ANC had her vote. So why is she now working for the DA? ‘I may vote for the ANC in the future, if they become a party worthy of my vote,’ she says. ‘But when I joined the DA, the ANC was not.’
Rule of Law, she describes the ANC as a oneman kleptocracy. ‘They have sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is Jacob Zuma. There are many people within the ANC who are wonderful people and for whom I have high regard. There are others, though, who don’t have the interests of South Africans at heart. When they shout at us in parliament, “It is our turn to eat!” they mean that literally. They don’t mean ordinary South Africans. That spirit of the ANC, of sacrificing everything for the communal good, is gone. I am not sure they can ever get back to where they were.’
Glynnis concedes that no political party is perfect: ‘In general, the DA embodies the values I believe in. It stands for the defence of the Constitution; it doesn’t just talk the talk.’
Just as we tend to defer responsibility for large-scale corruption while engaging in those ‘small acts’ ourselves, she is vehement that change starts with us, that we have the power to effect it. And it lies in the right to vote.
‘We don’t have a salubrious background as a country. And we had an opportunity in 1994 to change it. We haven’t fully made use of that opportunity. The only way we can is if every single South African understands the immense power of their vote. If people don’t perform, punish them. You don’t have to suck up all this nonsense for 22 years. You know what you want. Make it happen. If you have a driver who drives poorly, you’re not going to keep them. So why is it any different with a government?’
But many people feel there’s nobody they want to vote for.
‘People died so we could vote. People endured immense hardship so that we could have the privilege of voting, and of a constitutional democracy. If you don’t know who you want to vote for – I suppose that’s entirely possible – look around for a set of values that is as close to your own as possible. And vote for those people,’ she says.
‘With by-elections several times a year, and local and national government elections every five years, you have the opportunity to get rid of those who don’t do the job. Politics isn’t a popularity contest. You don’t have to like me to vote for me. You have to believe that I’ll do the right thing. The ANC results are based on emotion and it shows, because look where we are: down the plughole with no plug.’
But down the plughole or not, Glynnis is totally vested in South Africa. She’s had many job offers, here and abroad. ‘I didn’t take them, because I believe in this country. I believe we can make it work. And I’ll never leave. Never. I’m not here because I have nowhere else to go. I’m here because there is nowhere else I want to be.’