All things aside the one President who instilled a sense of urgency - which had been destroyed by the false sense of accomplishment post 94 - on the part of the African people of South Africa Former President Jacob Zumba keeps this urgency alive through his wizard like understanding of the political scheme of the country. His recent obsession with coming to terms or rethinking our Constitutional democracy in light of the Parliamentary sovereignty he seems to hold in such high esteem is welcome and engaging in such discourse at this very moment is essential for the nation. Moreover, the recent ‘unprecedented accounting by the Judiciary to the public’ can be interpreted as the Judiciaries response to the Former President. Listening to the report by the Chief Justice - I could not help but think that the real leaders of the country had shown their face especially when the two notions of constitutional democracy and parliamentary sovereignty are critically evaluated.
I have always been of the view that whatever your views are on separation of powers - ultimately the Constitutional Court decides the fate of the country. And in a country where the minorities are also the ones who have the majority of the wealth, all laws which do not suit them are inevitable brought before the constitutional court. If however, we were to embrace the Parliamentary supremacy foundation, the only difference however fundamental it might be is that now the power returns to the people - in that the Constitutional Court would be bound to only interpret any legislation Parliament would pass instead of the position we now have where the courts in general are vested the right to declare any law made by parliament unconstitutional. Granted if this power was reserved for pre 94 legislation I would be less skeptical. However, we have a situation where Parliament either does not know what the Constitution says, would rather have the courts do their job, and and.
The recent Fireblade fiasco (state capture) revealed this. Listening to the members of Parliament one could have forgotten that these people make the laws of the Republic and are tasked with keeping the executive accountable for the people who place them in that house. Instead they found it prudent to censor a former minister from stating his case because according to them the courts had spoken. We are now left in a place where the citizenships through Parliament was not given the opportunity to listen to the minister’s version which he contends was not even listened to by the same courts who according to the committee had spoken(from the bottom to the top). Parliament owed the minister, but more than that owed the citizens a opportunity to make its own mind up about who to believe - regardless of the court pronouncements. Funny enough the judgments were referred to as opinions (which they are) by the Fireblade. I declare conspiracy 😂😂 (a black man’s story cannot contradict a white man’s story - especially when you have the beneficiaries of cecil as the opponent) I mean go back to that weekend and week prior thereto - but again those of us who subscribe to different notions of state capture and not this highly watered down state capture propaganda doing the rounds.
Chief Justice called for non populist judges, forgetting that the Constitution is a populist document - if its transformational mandate is pursued without fear, favor or prejudice of anyone. (I will write about ganja and the CC to show my point.) And as such we must make amending the Constitution fashionable. The biggest test which is going to come from this tension perfectly identified by former President Zuma between parliamentary sovereignty or a judocracy- will be how the courts react to the cases which will appear before them for amending the Constitution and allowing every subsequent government of South Africa the choice to do as the please with the land of the country.
What this amendment does cannot be overemphasized, all that we are waiting for as lover of words is the final words which will appear in that Constitution. That is where the real tension will start, that is where the political arena of our country will be revealed. What we do know is that our people want their land back, but how they will get it back depends on how Parliament decides to word the new section. That section affects everything under the sky of the South African nation. What we have now is an opportunity to spell out how we can go about sharing our country - all of it, for whatever purpose,wherever it is situated. And a lack of understanding of the above could prove foolhardy.
What I am trying to suggest is that the only way which I have currently thought of of achieving the former President Jacob Zuma’s rightful wish of having the people govern themselves through their chosen representatives akin to what Parliamentary sovereignty offers is - by making amending the Constitution fashionable. As we know the Constitutional Court cannot declare its own empowering statute unconstitutional.
And if the new youthful black centered parties (yes 5 years or 3 years is nascent) (the BLEFF if you will) of our country currently under attack because of this pro black rhetoric - wish to implement policies which wish to change the current status quo which has continued post 94 - they must make the Constitution more explicit where it needs to be and less burdensome in other areas. I was going to write about the leaders of the EFF and BLF according to my eyes and compare the split which they went through to that of the ANC and PAC and the men at the helm at that time, while looking at the whether these parties understand what the term “constitutional delinquents” entails and why I currently think such conversations are necessary.This is necessary especially now.
