Laws for haves

LET’S be honest... our legal system benefits the haves because it was written to benefit them. They introduced it and now we inherit and apply it, with the pivot of our legal system being money, which we, the black majority, do not have.

We lose the game before we come out of the tunnel. All some bright spark must do is issue you with a lawyer’s letter of demand or initiate court action and you roll over, not because you are wrong but because you need a minimum of R20 000 for starters and more to follow, if you want to respond.

If you do not have the start-up amount (and more) then you are in deep water. You not only lose the case, which usually has value, but pay the applicant’s legal costs. Not to mention the negative spin-off effects like emotional harm, impact on family life, etc. The whole system must be rewritten to suit our specific situation.

Legal aid. The qualification is once again based on money. If you earn more than R5 500 a month you are deemed to be in a position to pay for legal costs. A great deal of people are hung out to dry.

Take this whole Jacob Zuma and Gupta matter. We all say just lock them up and be done with it. Well, it is not so easy. The legal system has to apply and one is assumed innocent until proven guilty. All you need to have is money and a good lawyer and you can play the game. The courts are also overloaded with cases. Time is a great factor and time costs money. So many of us defend the colonial and Roman influences in our country. These very systems are now biting us in the butt because they were never meant to be for us. We can now vote but are still subjected to an abusive system, and some of us even use the system.

KENNETH M ALEXANDER Athlone