by Jean-Jacques Cornish

South Africa’s courts have been a constant in the country’s hazardous path through wicked colonization, cruel apartheid and the vagaries of democracy.

So it is both inevitable and desirable that they should be called upon to rule on events in the biggest crisis the country has faced since the Second World War 75 years ago.

Government has assumed unprecedented powers to deal with the COVID 19 pandemic.

These have had an immediate impact on the rights of South Africans guaranteed in their Constitution that is justifiably the envy of most of the world.

They will also have an unfathomable long term impact on the socio-economic life of South Africa that is euphemistically referred to as challenging.

The first legal foray is being launched by British American Tobacco South Africa and the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association.

They argue that the National Coronavirus Command Council has taken measures that fly in the face of individuals right  to choose and are unnecessarily injurious to the exchequer. They further argue that the the NCCC is suffocating the country’s socio economic prospects.

Government counters that the prevention of tobacco and alcohol sales during the lockdown are justified on purely health grounds.

They say these steps have been emulated by Mexico Hong Kong and Greenland.

The second matter to come before the courts is challenging the  constitutional mandate  and the power of NCCC.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is being asked to explain the source of the power he has wielded delegating executive functions to a body that includes some but not all of his Cabinet.

To this, government will cite Constitutional Court President Arthur Chaskalson 1995 ruling outlawing capital punishment.

Judge Chaskalson said that the rights to life and dignity are the most important of them all. In make any ruling on human rights, these have to be placed above all else.

Ramaphosa argues that regulations put in place to combat COVID 19 are founded on government’s commitment to life and dignity.

In extreme circumstances, he holds, it is necessary to put a temporary restriction on other rights like the freedom of choice, movement and association.

Education is at the root of the third legal challenge.

The Tebelia Institute for Leadership, Education, Governance and Training 

and the Africa Institute on Human Rights and Constitutional Litigation are challenging the opening of schools.

They say government cannot keep parents at home to prevent the spread of COVID 19 while sending innocent children to school to save the academic year.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga  says, in effect, it is still up in the air.

She acknowledges that her department has indicated children could be returning to school as early as this week.

However, she says it is only the “education sector” not necessarily the schools themselves that  have opened up today.

As Tom Wolfe said in Bonfire of the Vanities, we are truly now in the web of the law.

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President Jacob Zuma defends black empowerment and advises business people not to be shy about doing things to help black South Africans.

With visiting Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe looking on Zuma tells a business forum black South Africans won’t own and control their economy until they comprise the top industrialists.

ends intro

President Jacob Zuma says the principles of democracy must not be used to keep the majority of South Africans subjugated.

They must liberate themselves because no-one else will do it for them.

They must not avoid using political power to economically empower themselves.

Black people all over the world are subject to difficult circumstances.

(take in Murder clip here)

Until they occupy the economic driver’s seat, the gap between rich and poor will always feature blacks on the poor side.

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The pen is mightier than the sword. Unless, as we saw in France last week, you happen to be holding the sword.

If this, or anything I write in this piece, offends you, good.

It means I am doing my job.

Je suis Charlie.

And good for you if you are reading on.

We might have linked arms in Paris yesterday. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddist in a gathering larger than the 1945 liberation from Nazi occupation.

The very basis of the democracy we are so fond of saying we fought and died for is the obligation to defend to the death the other person’s right to say that with which you profoundly disagree.

That amounts to defending another’s right to be offensive.

If Charlie Hebdo – the French satirical magazine subjected to a decimating jihadi attack – stands for anything then that is the right to be offensive.

In fact, insulting. Throughly objectionable.

The magazine has done that in the face of banning and firebombing.

It began life as Hari Kiri and was banned in 1970 for mocking the death of former President Charles de Gaulle.

Most of the staff simply migrated to Charlie Hebdo named for the Charles Schulz cartoon character with hebdo being the shortened form of a weekly publication.

The Catholic Church has more often been its religious target and the Jewish faith has tasted the full force of its vituperation.

Interestingly both have condemned Wednesday’s attack.

The politicians who have taken up the cudgels for Charlie Hebdo have, to a man or woman, been viciously stabbed by the pens and pencils they now protect.

Those of usproud of our French heritage speak fondly of baguettes, croissants, Beaujoulais nouveau and tricolores.

Last week we had to examine the more serious side of that link: freedom of speech.

It is the very root of democracy. The real meaning of liberte, fraternite, egalite.

It is extremely difficult and dangerous. It is much easier to be politically correct, keep quiet and avoid offending.

But then you don’t get a society that is the envy of the world.

President Francois Hollande, who’s deportment since the Charlie Hebdo outrage would have done his record-low popularity rating no harm, explained that his compatriots were paying for decisions taken in the Elyssee Palace and Quay d’Orsay.

You could, of course, avoid getting involved in driving Al Qaeda out of northern Mali.

You could turn your face against joining the war on terror.

There would a moral price for this and, with any luck, no physical toll.

But then you would not be France.

(This piece first appeared on JJ Cornish.com)

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