JSC INTERVIEWS ANALYSIS
JSC ends shocking week of Chief Justice interviews with marathon Zondo grilling
The final shortlisted candidate for Chief Justice, Judge Raymond Zondo, was freed from the JSC hot seat after a 12-hour session. It was yet another troubling interview, as Zondo faced pot-shots from commissioners clearly opposed to his candidacy as a result of his work on State Capture.
Some of the most unsettling parts of a horror movie are the initial scenes. You are aware that something awful must be just around the corner, and your body is rigid with tension awaiting it. Superficially, everything you’re seeing on screen is calm and pleasant, bar a few ominous signs: the eerie notes of a breeze moving though wind-chimes, or the creepy tinkling of a child’s old-fashioned music box. But it is impossible to relax, because you know with every fibre of your being that all is not as it seems. When the inevitable jump-scare finally arrives, its shock is accompanied by a strange sense of relief.
The first two-thirds of Judge Raymond Zondo’s Chief Justice interview were a bit like those opening scenes. How civil the commissioners seemed, and how straightforward the proceedings, compared with the previous day’s turmoil. Zondo was being permitted to lay out his priorities for the judiciary, with a focus on the upgrading of judicial infrastructure and an increase in judicial independence, on which point Zondo was particularly resolute.
He had defended the fact that he would only be able to serve two and a half years as Chief Justice due to term limits for Constitutional Court judges, pointing to the tenure of previous Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo (2009-2011) as a precedent for the possibility of making significant progress within a limited time. Commissioners hadn’t even seemed interested in making a meal of this issue, which was slightly unexpected, since it had appeared a dominant concern in the interview of Judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, but perhaps their thirst for blood had been temporarily sated by the previous day’s feast on Judge Dunstan Mlambo.
JSC plumbs new depths in Chief Justice interview derailed by anonymous rumours
The focus of questioning had shifted in due course to Zondo’s high-profile work as the chair of the commission of inquiry into State Capture, where the judge revealed that he had accepted the job out of a sense of patriotic duty after a number of other judicial professionals had turned it down. Zondo assured the commission that he would have no hesitation in making adverse findings against President Cyril Ramaphosa, should they be required.
Then the first eerie notes of the wind-chime sounded, when commissioner Julius Malema demanded to know why Zondo had failed to issue a subpoena to summon former spy boss Arthur Fraser to testify before the State Capture inquiry, and potentially lift the lid on the uses of an alleged R9-billion secret intelligence slush fund. Malema’s voice had a certain distinct edge to it, but in a truly astonishing development – by the standards of the previous day’s proceedings – Chair Xola Petse instructed Malema to “moderate your tone”. Things were on the up and up.
Zondo explained that the timeline of Fraser-related negotiations had unfolded in such a way that it eventually proved impossible for his testimony to be heard without this significantly extending the duration of the commission’s lifespan, which the judge was aware was already the subject of much public unhappiness. He added that the NPA would still be able to investigate the relevant matters.
At this point some murmurings of unease began to stir among observers of the JSC interview process about whether it was strictly appropriate for Zondo to be questioned over aspects of the State Capture inquiry on which findings had not yet been released, and might not yet even have been written. But in the wider context – which was that of a JSC which had a day earlier made an exhilarating bonfire of a judge’s entire reputation – it seemed quite a small thing, really, given that everything was ticking over relatively smoothly.
Shortly afterwards, Zondo would announce to the commission, with the guilelessness of a person who is pure of heart and expects the same of others, that he would meet with Ramaphosa from time to time during the inquiry’s proceedings in order to brief the executive authority responsible for the commission’s establishment on matters including budgetary constraints, but also to provide updates on “progress” – a word vague enough to allow any manner of sinister meaning to be stuffed into it by those in the mood.
Cue the creepy tinkling of the child’s old-fashioned music box. Malema is always in the mood. After expressing suspicion about the true necessity for these meetings between Ramaphosa and Zondo, he accused the judge of delaying the release of the final Zondo Commission report in order to avoid criticising Ramaphosa before the president made the Chief Justice selection.
“I never thought about that angle, Commissioner Malema,” Zondo responded with warm interest, in exactly the same tone he might have used had Malema instead suggested Zondo might try pairing his scarlet tie with a matching pocket square.
“If there is one thing I would like behind me, it is the work of the commission.”
Zondo explained that the decision on what parts of the report to release at which time was based purely on what parts were closest to completion.
By now at least one possible element of the narrative arc designed for Zondo’s interview by the JSC’s resident saboteurs was slowly coming into ominous focus: questioning on procedural aspects of the State Capture inquiry to sow growing doubt about the judge’s motives and integrity, and consequently taint the findings of the inquiry report. For those of us who, after four days of interview proceedings, had developed an early warning system for signs of impending JSC-zure, the sensors were beginning to flash.
But surely it was possible that all might yet be redeemed – surely, with Judge Zondo continuing to beam in an avuncular fashion and greet every question as if it were truly worthy of dignified reflection; as if all were as it should be, as if JSC commissioners were motivated by nothing more than a thirst to contribute to the democratic process, a passion for the transformative potential of jurisprudence and a sincere desire to explore the qualities of the country’s most distinguished jurists…
Any last vestiges of hope for the existence of that alternative universe were ripped away by the spectacle shortly down the line of Malema haranguing Zondo with the words: “When a person says ‘House N*****’, and I am not a ‘House N*****’, why should I be bothered?”
The ostensible higher purpose of this line of questioning was to interrogate Zondo’s decision as acting Chief Justice to call a press conference in January defending the judiciary against the insults of Lindiwe Sisulu. That choice of action has been a preoccupation for the JSC since the first day of Chief Justice interviews, with each candidate preceding Zondo more or less encouraged to criticise the action, on the grounds that it potentially amounts to a judge trespassing into the political terrain in a way that muddies the division between arms of the state.
The rogue commissioners now running the show at the JSC have, by contrast, shown almost no interest in inviting the candidates to condemn Sisulu, a sitting member of the executive, for trespassing into the judicial terrain in a way that muddies the division between arms of the state, despite the fact that an indisputable case can made in that regard and almost none at all in the other direction.
Each of the three judges preceding Zondo in the JSC interview seat have made it clear that they find nothing remotely reprehensible about Zondo’s conduct in this regard. The JSC’s evident dedication to whipping up a wholly false sense of impropriety around the issue is extraordinarily problematic given that the commissioners should surely be expected to be animated by the same kind of desire as Zondo demonstrated: to protect the judiciary against external attacks. This week’s JSC proceedings have established pretty much definitively that this is not the case, which has to trigger some serious alarm bells.
But the real meaning of those words from Malema to Zondo – “When a person says ‘House N*****’, and I am not a ‘House N*****’, why should I be bothered?” – is infinitely more grotesque, and needs to be spelled out, because Malema and his cronies deliberately operate under cover of a shadow world of doublespeak and plausible deniability: if you were not yourself a ‘House N****’, Judge Zondo, you would not have been so offended.
What is the point of even attempting to sketch the remainder of JSC proceedings? Zondo would proceed to be accused by Malema of inappropriate intimacy with former president Jacob Zuma, because in the EFF’s conceptual universe it is possible to be an apparatchik of both Zuma and Ramaphosa simultaneously. None of this has to make sense: the intention is simply to kick enough mud in the direction of a Chief Justice candidate like Zondo, in a sufficiently frenzied fashion, to render his appointment untenable.
A full-blown shouting match would eventually break out between Malema and Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, in the course of Malema executing a time-saving strategy to take out two judges at once, by hinting at irregularities in Zondo’s appointment of Mlambo as an acting judge on the Constitutional Court.
After the formal adjournment of Zondo’s interview, which the judge somehow managed to exit still radiating kindness and decency, Chair Xola Petse read the commissioners an email which the public was not intended to hear, because Petse thought the cameras had been switched off. It was from a law academic at Rhodes University, expressing acute concern about the just-concluded Chief Justice interview process, and imploring the chair to consider starting the process from scratch.
Otherwise, she warned, the prospect of a legal challenge was very real.
Petse read the email aloud with an unconcealed smirk, and just before the mistake was realised and the cameras shut down, commissioners were shown questioning why members of the public were even allowed to contact the JSC in this manner.
The last word, predictably, went to Commissioner Dali Mpofu, the former EFF chairperson and Zuma’s lawyer.
“We have been abused for the whole week by all sorts of people,” he complained.
“We can’t just be abused freely. We are also human! There’s only so much we can take.” DM
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How on god’s green earth is Judas Melanoma allowed to sit and interrogate these people. That a man so steeped in wrongdoing, so ill equipped to make any legitimate contribution that could possibly be taken seriously is being allowed a legitimate platform to spout his amateur political dabblings, is frankly beyond the pale. Eish, my irony meter is broken.
Because he is an elected “Leader”-we can thank the non-thinking voting public for this privilege of hearing his hypocritical nonsense on committees .People get the government they deserve!! Think then vote..our futures are at stake!
I believe Zondo should get the nod for the job.
Big Yes-he has proven his partiality-we need Role Models like him in this “sea of sewer rats”
Presumably “partiality” should read “impartiality” ?
Malema’s antis are just the Rattle of a Simple Man.
An insightful and beautifully written summing up of yesterday’s horror show. Quite why Mpofu and Malema are allowed to be part of that commission is unclear. Except it seems impossible to have any govt. structure uncontaminated; there just are too few honest, uncorrupted people to go around. Acting Chief Justice Zondo’s behaviour and calm restraint were exemplary and his integrity unquestionable. Sadly he is probably way too good to be appointed! Men of honour are not honoured in South Africa right now.
Unless I am mistaken, not one Commissioner had the strength of character to challenge the chairman for allowing the interviewing of four outstanding South Africans to descend into the gutter. How is the Chairman chosen? Can he be removed? Can the proceedings be challenged? Leaders are driven by values and vision. Frontrunners are driven by ambition, greed, opportunism and power. Where were the leaders on the JSC?
Thank you for saying what needs to be said.
… but they can abuse as much as they like. Why do we still have to listen to the rantings and raving of this anarchist and his puppet Mpofu?
With only 2.5 years left to serve, plus dealing with the capture commission aftermath, it is probably better that Zondo does not get the nod
One of the reasons why South Africa is in the mess that it is can be attributed to the fact that commentators , academics and journalists write this kind of banal and breathless inanity.
Messrs Molema and Mpofu and others know that the proceedings of the JSC are (and have been ) from the beginning a charade. The decisions which it is supposed to earnestly deliberate are made elsewhere and at other times. So these purveyors of the ” anti – colonial mantra” use the opportunity to score political points or to air personal grievances.
Instead of calling it out and stating in the clearest terms that the institutions of the Constitution have been perverted beyond any cognizable recognition, articles such as these lend some kind of credibility to something which is a staged farce.
This is beyond shameful
We’d be in a far greater mess if we did not have journalists with the courage to write articles exposing the malfeasance of those we’ve put our trust in. I think it’s an excellent article which accurately conveys the dichotomy between the paranoid suspicious questioning by Malema and co. with the decency, patience and intelligence of Judge Zondo.
Mr Price… WHAT? Say again? It’s this kind of cynical eye that strengthens the hand of those who have no time for democratic values – and is beyond shameful. Commentators, academics & journalists – especially the latter (who risk their actual lives!) – are our ‘thin defensive line’. How else would you have characterised/reported this process? Everything you said/wanted was there…to be seen….if not verbatim.
Dear Mr Olivier,
It seems that you and I just function according to different standards,
In my book someone who fills up space by reiterating : ” he said this.”… “she said that” is carrying out the function of an amanuensis not a political journalist. Indeed in the modern idiom a video camera can do the job better.
There are many interesing and important questions to be asked about South Africa since 1994 : Why have consitutional guardrails and ostensible protections been such an abject failure ?; Is the Constitution itself inherently flawed ? or Is the ANC so funtamentally corrupt that no constitution could have have protected South Africa against it.
I have yet to see any one tackle these issues seriously
However , if you are satisfied with platitudes, so be it.
Let’s introduce another measure of suitability for this position. The more you are hammered by ANC and ex-ANC specimens the more suitable you are for the position.
Thanks for this article. I shall now go off and weep.
Not only are Malema and Mpofu allowed on the JSC they run it and the others are bullied into submission. Now the JSC has recommended (as announced by its spokesperson Mpofu) that they recommend the woman, who they perceive as the weakest.
What a surprise. I also learnt this morning that the Pope was a Catholic.
Well, when you have vindictive, useless oxygen thieves like Malema & Mpofu able to manipulate the narrative to suit their failed marxist ideology of dragging everyone down to their level (and others willing to listen) you’ve lost the plot completely. No self-respecting professional should have to put up with that!
Malema and Mpofu are clowns, as are one or two other commissioners. Public interviewing of candidates at that low level of intelligence is embarrassing for me as a citizen. I watched part of the televised interview of Zondo. Can you imagine what people in developed economies might have thought, were they unfortunate enough to be subjected to this televised circus? Where was the questioning of principles, questioning of the candidate’s road map, questioning of the candidate’s vision for the office of Chief Justice? All we got was a banana republic exhibition of idiocy and ineptitude. The JSC is utterly pathetic.
I wish what you said were true. Spend some time looking at the US Congress or, the British Commons, Some pretty shady stuff happens & is said there…especially in the US. Some of the Q-idiots in the House (and Senate, I guess) make Malema seem like a Light of Reason. We live in exceptional times.
Having lived in the UK since the 60’s to escape Apartheid South Africa, it is deeply depressing to read and see what’s happening now in the home country.
However, I do think one should not rubbish everything that has happened since the ANC has been in power. The fact that Zuma has been incarcerated is something I do not think would happen in most countries of the world, including the so-called developed democracies where politicians such as Trump are well able to evade justice with the support of a large section of the population.
I think the Zondo commision is an amazing example of searching for the truth and opening up the corruption that exists in South Africa. I can not see, for example, that happening here in the UK where the Prime Minister’s, Boris Johnson’s, instincts are to lie and deceive and coverup illegal and corrupt activities. The findings of the Zondo Commision might never be fully implemented but, as it stands, it is a shining example of integrity in modern politics where sadly standards are now rock bottom. I challenge anyone to point to similar intervention in any other country.
Having lived outside S A for 60 about 60 years, you’re in the position where distance lends enchantment to the view.
What happens in other countries is not at all relevant to South Africa. There is very little that the ANC has done that could not have been done better, particularly during the honeymoon era when the “rainbow nation” was the darling of the world.
By breaking down a functioning state and state institutions and not replacing them the ANC has taken South Africa to the brink of collapse.
While the findings of the Zondo Commission have highlighted the corrupt and the extent of the corruption, there is no chance of the corrupt being properly dealt with by the criminal justice system. In essence the exercise has been like wetting the bed – some immediate relief – but in this case nobody to clean up the mess.
For those of us who detested apartheid, who had great hopes for the future, but who chose not to “escape”, the transition to the ANC has turned into disillusionment and disappointment.
Worse still the behaviour of the ANC has given credence to the prophesies of those who resisted change on the basis that Africa had yet to produce anything resembling good government.
How sad.
Very sad. South African economy is in a terrible mess and it’s very difficult to see how it might get itself out of this dire situation.
Even sadder is the fact that it remains a highly unequal society, that the heritage of Apartheid remains very much in evidence wherever you go, with a small minority of the black and Coloured population groups benefiting from the state coffers and empowerment schemes, whist the majority remain lacking in basic provisions. And at the same time much of white society still live in grand mansions albeit within the confines of private security apparatuses.
Its no wonder that there are constant riots and self-destructive attacks on service provisions. The extensive outbursts of looting and violence which followed the incarceration of Zuma is a very worrying symptom of a much more serious malaise, which, if its not addressed by those who hold the purse strings of power, will almost inevitably lead to a more serious conflagration.
I can’t help thinking that if I were Judge Manisa Maya (with apologies to the judge) there is no way I would accept the Chief Justice post after the poor and posturing interview she was exposed to by oily commissioners with an agenda. It was sexist and belittling and provided no real opportunity to reveal her deeper thinking and plans. It was a circus and belittling to all four candidates but particularly Judge Maya. I wish she would tell the commissioners to take a hike and call her when they are serious about a woman Chief Justice. And serious about dignified, thoughtful interviews that mean something. Perhaps all four candidates should withdraw in protest.
Apologies for the typo: Judge Mandisa Maya.
With Juju and Poffie on the JSC, the apple is half rotten to start with.
From such illustrious beginnings we now have “Commissioner” Malema serving on the JSC. He has very plainly not progressed (neither intellectually nor in the way he conducts himself) from being a bully-boy in the school playground. Since you are unable even to reprint in full “House N****” in your newspaper , I wonder why it is that such utterances did not result in his immediate and permanent expulsion from the JSC. I think as concerned citizens we need to call for a full investigation and report on the use of such appallingly abusive language. Along with the unfounded and improper allegations made by Dali Mpofu. We cannot allow one of our most important constitutional entities to be sullied with such utter trash.