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South Africa

Open Letter to the Speaker: Undignified, ungracious and devoid of ubuntu

Open Letter to the Speaker: Undignified, ungracious and devoid of ubuntu

By Mervyn Bennun, ANC member WC 142947.

Dear Cde Mbete,

It is possible that you will remember me. We met in 1998 when I was working for the ANC study group in the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development, chaired by Johnny de Lange and Willie Hofmeyr. You were at the time the Deputy Speaker to Frene Ginwala, and I recall some amiable cups of coffee with you.

I write to comment about current affairs.

I note that the actual words used by the Constitutional Court were that the National Assembly’s conduct was not merely inconsistent with the Constitution and unlawful, but that it also flouted its obligations.

Yet I note that you have denied that Parliament had “violated” the Constitution when it replaced the findings of the public protector with its own resolution that cleared President Jacob Zuma.

I can make no sense of this. I know of no canon for the construction and interpretation of statutes which recognises formal degrees of unlawfulness, any more than medical science recognises that a woman with child may be only “slightly pregnant”.

As we have free and fair elections in South Africa, the African National Congress can both win and lose elections. I wonder how you would react if the ANC should be the opposition and the governing party drew such specious distinctions.

I note that the Constitutional Court stated:

The President is the Head of State and Head of the national Executive. His is indeed the highest calling to the highest office in the land. He is the first citizen of this country and occupies a position indispensable for the effective governance of our democratic country. Only upon him has the constitutional obligation to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic been expressly imposed.”

The court stated that the president had “failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the land”.

Yet the ANC’s view is that his misconduct has been so venial that it suffices for him to apologise for no more than “frustration and confusion”, not for having sought to benefit at the public’s expense. How mendacious and grasping must an incumbent be, before the ANC’s leadership and parliamentary caucus would put an end to that person’s presidency as the Head of State and of the party?

Further, your refusal to stand down readily and willingly from the Speaker’s chair was a display of undignified vanity, ungracious, and devoid of ubuntu.

I wish to tell you of a certain incident in which I was involved.

In 1964 I was briefed by the Defence and Aid Fund to appear in a special regional magistrates’ court in Somerset East to defend a large number of people in a series of trials, all having been charged with membership of the African National Congress and furthering its aims in various ways by making donations and attending meetings. As the TRC heard, the evidence was obtained by brutalising those whom the police wanted to use as witnesses. The jurisdiction of the court was five years’ imprisonment on each count, so sentences of 10, 15 and even 20 years were being imposed. In November, towards the end of my work there, five of the accused called me to see them together as a group in the jail.

They were older than I was, and indeed any one of them could have been your father.

One man acted as spokesperson. He said that when they had been first detained months previously none were members of the ANC, but they had now deemed themselves to be members and had accordingly formed a branch in the jail. He said that they had observed that the more determined the defence, the harsher were the sentences. He said that they had decided that I should no longer defend them. Then he reached through the bars of the cell door, took my hands in his, told me that I should leave South Africa and go to England, and tell what I had seen. Then he said quietly, “But please don’t forget us”.

A few months later I went to England. I joined the ANC. I have now been a member for over 50 years.

Others must judge how I conducted myself in the anti-apartheid struggle, and I owe those men in Somerset East – and others like them – an accounting. As for you, I wonder whether you would wish to look them in their eyes and tell them that what you did as an ANC leader was to honour their sacrifice.

Yours,

Mervyn Bennun

ANC member WC 142947 DM

Photo: Baleka Mbete, Speaker for the National Assembly and Chairperson of the African National Congress arrives ahead of South African President Jacob Zuma answering questions about his State Of The Nation Address (SONA) in parliament in Cape Town, South Africa, 19 February 2015. EPA/NIC BOTHMA.

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