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The SA Communist Party (SACP) and the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) are set to embark on mass protests against South Africa’s judges, who they accuse of “bias” and “partiality”.
SACP second secretary Solly Mapaila told City Press that the party’s special congress next month would outline a detailed programme to tackle the judiciary, while the youth league was set to descend on the KwaZulu-Natal High Court this week to protest against the country’s judges.
Mapaila said the party would demand that the “least transformed organ of the state” stop “encroaching on the terrains of the executive and Parliament”.
He said the campaign was prompted by the party’s concern that the judiciary had become “a superinstitution that accounts to no one”.
Mapaila’s comments come after recent attacks on the judiciary by senior ANC and government leaders. The attacks have been spearheaded by ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, chief whip Stone Sizani and SACP boss Blade Nzimande.
The ANC is perturbed that many judgments in recent years have gone against Parliament and the government, a trend it views as proof that the judiciary is biased.
The attacks reached a crescendo this week after a full Bench of the North Gauteng High Court ruled that the government had breached the law by failing to arrest Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, while he was in South Africa, and facilitating his departure despite a judicial order that the state keep him in the country.
Mapaila said judges seemed to “be functioning as mechanical instruments that are not alive to the context of and interests of the country”.
“They are interpreting the law as if they are operating from an island outside the country ... It is our belief that the executive, judiciary and Parliament should work with the same mission for the country, but you have the feeling that others don’t want to do this,” said Mapaila.
He said that while judges seemed to “create the impression that they are impartial, they are not”.
“Some of their judgments are questionable and disparaging of the judiciary itself. We now see the judiciary stripping Parliament of its own rules. That is completely unacceptable,” he said.
The youth league’s KwaZulu-Natal chapter said its “massive march” was in response to opposition parties disrupting President Jacob Zuma in Parliament, and against what it sees as forays into the political arena by the courts.
Provincial secretary Thanduxolo Sabelo said: “The opposition uses the courts to hide behind freedom of speech in order to disrupt the National Assembly. We are saying the courts should desist from entering the political realm and refuse to be used by directionless political parties.”
