Related Content :- The Conflict of the Past: A Factual Review
The audi alteram partem rule, which is the foundation of natural justice, has never been applied to members of the Security Branch. This rule has been replaced by the rule: “The Law is determined by those who make the loudest noise and who talk and write the most and fill the empty spaces in, especially Afrikaans, newspapers” – and they are, without exception, those who for some or other reason have a grudge against the former Security Branch - people like messers Max du Preez, Jazques Pauw and other like-minded people who, in the past, leaned towards the ANC.
The time has come when the people of South Africa must take note of what really happened in the past and that past events be viewed with more emapthy and understanding for the sacrifices made by members of the Security Branch at great personal cost to themselves and their families. Should equality before the law be upheld and everybody to whom annesty was refused in the past be prosecuted and should any sense of law and justice remain, it should start with the members of the NEC of the ANC. The real issue is whether, by doing this, expression is given to the final paragraph of the Interem Constitution, which also forms the foundation for the present Constitution. A quotation from the closing paragraphs of the Interim Constitution reads as follows:
The time has come when the people of South Africa must take note of what really happened in the past and that past events be viewed with more emapthy and understanding for the sacrifices made by members of the Security Branch at great personal cost to themselves and their families. Should equality before the law be upheld and everybody to whom annesty was refused in the past be prosecuted and should any sense of law and justice remain, it should start with the members of the NEC of the ANC. The real issue is whether, by doing this, expression is given to the final paragraph of the Interem Constitution, which also forms the foundation for the present Constitution. A quotation from the closing paragraphs of the Interim Constitution reads as follows:
The adoption of this Constitution lays the secure foundation for the people of South Africa to transcend the divisions and strife of the past, which generated gross violations of human rights, the transgression of humanitarian principles in violent conflicts and a legacy of hatred, fear guilt and revenge.
These can now be addressed on the basis that there is a need for understanding but not for vengeance, a need for reparation but not for retaliation, a need for ubuntu but not for victimization.
In order to advance such reconciliation and reconstruction, amnesty shall be granted in respect of acts, omissions and offences associated with political objectives and committed in the course of the conflicts of the past…….”
Apart from the fact that the one-sided prosecution of former members of the Security Branch will be a gross violation of the principle of equality before the law, perhaps the most important principle of the Constitution, it will also be in glaring contrast to the provisions and essence of the concluding paragraph of the Interim Constitution and will once again flare up the hatred and discord of the past. Is this the kind of justice and future that some persons and members of the media envisaged for South Africa?
SEARCH THIS WEBSITE
EXPLORE CATEGORIES
