Judiciary fights back

RETRACT: JUDGES SAY ANDILE LUNGISA’S ATTACK CONSTITUTES CONTEMPT

‘Attempts to use political pressure to avoid jail time’ following attack in council meeting in 2016.

Alegal expert has described convicted criminal and former ANC Youth League leader Andile Lungisa’s public claims that he got a raw deal in court because of undue interference as an attempt “to bring political pressure to bear to avoid the unavoidable” – prison time.

Advocate Paul Hoffman, who also heads up Accountability Now, a not-for-profit civil society organisation, said yesterday Lungisa would be well advised to heed the judiciary’s call and retract his claims.

“It is important the dignity of the courts and their status as a branch of government is respected by everybody and in particular by politicians and those in positions of power,” Hoffman said.

He said Lungisa’s “baseless bad-mouthing” not only brought the judiciary into disrepute, but that it also revealed “the bankruptcy of his case”.

Hoffman said if Lungisa could not see the wrongfulness of what he had done, then he had “lost touch with the reality of criminal law and of his duty as a public representative to respect and protect the human rights of everyone, including his fellow councillors”.

Political analyst Dr Somadoda Fikeni said the judiciary could not be expected to simply ignore Lungisa’s comments and that its call was warranted.

He was doubtful, however, that the comments carried much weight with the public. He said Lungisa lacked credibility. He compared Lungisa’s comments to the ANC’s defence of former president Jacob Zuma against the judiciary, during his tenure.

“The ANC leadership used to call the judiciary all kinds of names but the public was rather steady in its focus,” Fikeni said.

Lungisa’s comments came on the back of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) earlier this month dismissing his bid to overturn the three-year prison sentence he was slapped with for smashing a glass jug over DA councillor Rano Kayser’s head at a meeting in 2016.

Speaking outside Port Elizabeth’s North End Prison last week, Lungisa said he and his legal team “couldn’t do anything in court because there was a collaboration of those who are within our ranks, including those who are part of the old regime”.

“They collaborated with the magistrate, then they got to the prosecutor. It then went to Grahamstown. It went to Bloemfontein. In Bloemfontein, the majority of the judges come from the Eastern Cape.

“When our matter was there in Bloemfontein, the husband of the judges who presided over my case were promoted. Their children were given contracts and then we expect there will be a fair outcome? And you think there is what is called fair justice?” he said.

SCA Judge President Mandisa Maya and Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge, together with the judges concerned, responded to Lungisa’s comments on Wednesday and demanded a retraction.

They said his “allusive and false” comments undermined “the integrity of the judiciary and judicial independence” and constituted contempt of court and crimen injuria.

“Efforts to discredit the judiciary by levelling allegations of corruption against the judiciary as a whole or against individual judges and political figures or role-players without any further substantiation must be condemned,” the statement read.

“Any person with credible evidence of corruption or undue influence within the judiciary must come forward and produce the evidence.”

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It is important the dignity of courts and their status, as a branch of government, is respected.

Advocate Paul Hoffman Accountability Now head