King should show mettle

IN JULY 2009, as the ANC’s newest MP substituted suits for jeans to embark on constituency work during the parliamentary recess, he first paid his respects to Zwelibanzi, King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo of the abaThembu. It was the kind of gesture a chief would make to a king, Mandla Mandela being the chief of the village of Mvezo, not far from the Sithebe Great Place, just outside Mthatha, where the royal palace lies. Yet it was also confirmation of a decision the MP had taken to champion a mighty principle: one kingdom, one nation, one king.

That moment must seem so far away now, both for Mandela and Zwelibanzi, who saw his appeal against his sentencing for crimes including culpable homicide, arson and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm mostly rejected by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) last week.

Since then, Zwelibanzi – whose monarchy was confirmed by the Nhlapo Commission, set up by Thabo Mbeki in 2005 to investigate false kingship claims – has threatened to go to the Constitutional Court, while the Congress of Traditional Leaders (Contralesa) has apparently indicated it wouldn’t be incorrect, according to customary law, for a subject of the king to go to jail for him instead. Zwelibanzi is no longer a member of the ANC.

We can’t but help reflect on the words of the SCA judges, when they effectively called the king a despot. Even more important, though, were the judges’ reflections on the rule of law under our constitution. As was affirmed by no less an individual than President Jacob Zuma himself during a meeting with Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng earlier this year, it is vital that we all uphold that law. And the abaThembu king should certainly not be above that.

However, this case has threatened to enter territory previously untravelled in our law, particularly around the views of Contralesa. That territory, as the SCA judges said, is all about competing contentions – and which will win.

To outsiders, this may all seem a little crazy, but to many South Africans, this is real life. Let’s hope the king can, at last, show some mettle. His subjects, at the very least, surely deserve that.