No crisis in the ANC

Judge resigns over private Facebook comment

PRETORIA High Court Judge Mabel Jansen tendered her resignation with immediate effect this week.

Judge Jansen was on special leave following comments she made, which gave rise to a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).

In an exchange of private messages on Facebook with film-maker ANC NEC member and Police Minister Fikile Mbalula dismissed calls by opposition parties for President Jacob Zuma to step down from office during an interview on the BBC Hard Talk Programme. This was after the cabinet reshuffle and subsequent credit-ratings downgrades by two global ratings firms.

He said the ANC was not going through a crisis and those who criticised Africa’s oldest liberation movement publicly sought to “demonise” the party. He said there had been some challenges, but over time the ANC had always emerged victorious. Gillian Schutte, Jansen made a series of comments, including that 99% of the criminal cases she heard were of “black fathers/uncles/brothers raping children as young as five”. She further said it was “black culture” that women were there to pleasure men.

She resigned when the JSC was processing the complaint about her.