Gaza case a seismic event
The SA government’s charges against Israel of genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will be a seismic event. The court did side with SA, ordering Israel to “prevent any genocide” and allow humanitarian access to the area. But it seems legally inconceivable that the genocide accusation – which will take months, possibly years, to be ruled upon – will succeed. If it were to, there are many nations, mostly anti-Israel, who would very soon find themselves in the same dock.
SA’s ICJ application, if not its arguments, was certainly a political masterstroke.
Aside from the position that it’s staked out for itself as the improbable moral voice of the nonaligned world – remember the refusal to arrest Sudan President Omar al-Bashir, a convicted perpetrator of genocide? – it’s a rare moment for the ANC to display a face that’s not raddled with corruption, ineptitude and greed. And that’s a most useful distraction in an election year.
In reality, perhaps the most remarkable aspect of our application was not its self-proclaimed brilliance but the speed and efficiency with which it was executed. The entire process took only a few weeks.
That’s exceptional for a government that over half a dozen years has failed to bring a single successful prosecution against those who looted state coffers during Jacob Zuma’s administration. This is the same government that took two years to file an extradition application for two ringleaders of that looting, which failed, because it was poorly drafted, on a technicality.
The first responsibility of the state, any state, is to protect its citizens and their property. In South Africa, that’s simply not happening. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is literally a joke. Last year, the judge presiding over what the NPA said was its “seminal prosecution” of eight people charged with state looting, described the state’s case as “a comedy of errors”.
The SA Police Service (Saps) is as moribund as the NPA. Large numbers of South Africans no longer bother to report crimes, unless they require a case number for insurance purposes.
Despite the police budget virtually doubling in just over a decade, detection rates have plunged in lockstep. The police presence in large swathes of the country exists only in name.
The core problem of criminality in our country is that so many within the ANC are either actively involved in crime, or at least complicit.
That makes for a grim situation. When the state protects the predator, or is itself the predator, the ordinary citizen’s constitutional protections become meaningless.
A case in point is Intercape, the biggest bus operator in southern Africa, which has endured a seven-year campaign against it by Eastern Cape taxi associations, with more than 200 attacks on its buses, staff and passengers. There hasn’t been a single arrest.
When the police wouldn’t act, Intercape CEO Johann Ferreira approached the provincial and national ministers of transport, begging them to intervene. They advised him to “do a deal” with the taxi bosses.
At his wits’ end, Ferreira in 2022 petitioned the high court to intervene. Judge John Smith’s ruling was scathing of the government’s “toleration of criminal violence” and gave Saps and the ministers 20 days to develop an actionable plan. Nothing was done.
Last month, Intercape headed back to court. Judge Motilal Rugunanan found the national and provincial police commissioners in contempt and gave them a month to formulate a plan to protect Intercape.
Failure to provide “visible policing” could lead to them being jailed.
The ANC government’s commitment to the rule of law and justice has been superficial, opportunistic and steeped in hypocrisy. On reflection, exactly the qualities required to front the charges against Israel.
The ANC government’s commitment to the rule of law and justice has been superficial, opportunistic and steeped in hypocrisy.