Johannesburg -Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu set the cat among the pigeons this week with her withering attack on the country’s judiciary while the national focus was still glued on the future of state capture scoundrels.
The reactions to Sisulu’s remarks have ranged from calls for her to be censured or sacked from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet to acclamations by those who perceive the country’s judiciary as too powerful for their liking.
Sisulu’s critique of the judiciary must not come as a surprise. It must be placed in the context of the ferocious ANC’s ideological schisms in the lead-up to the troubled governing party’s elective conference, which is due in December.
Sisulu’s critique was certainly well-calculated. It was meant to achieve a certain political outcome as various factions begin to position and gear themselves up for the party’s electoral conference. By all intents and purposes, she would have hoped that Ramaphosa would dismiss her from his cabinet – something which many urged Ramaphosa to do this week.
The problem with that approach is that Ramaphosa would have been seen as intolerant of free speech and opinion by members and officials of his party. Sisulu must be allowed to hold views about the judiciary. To suggest that the judiciary cannot be criticized would take us back to apartheid days when it was illegal to pass negative opinions on high court rulings.
However, she must also be told to produce evidence to back up her assessment. Sisulu is a seasoned politician who should know that a critique bereft of empirical evidence smacks of political expediency and opportunism.
It would indeed have been the folly of Ramaphosa to pull the trigger because it would have played right into Sisulu’s political strategy, which sought the outcome that was going to make her a victim of political intolerance.
It is difficult not to believe those who argue that Sisulu’s opinion piece was not necessarily directed at black judges. It was tactically aimed at provoking Ramaphosa to act. It was meant to portray him as a weak leader who cannot rein in judges and protect his comrades like Jacob Zuma from the rule of law.
Sisulu knew her critique was going to ruffle feathers and put her in the political spotlight, which she has been craving since the party’s last elective conference.
She certainly wanted to gauge support for her presidential campaign, which has long been in the offing. Her critique was also meant to wrestle control of the RET faction, which has been disorganized and in disarray as it did not have a face ahead of the crucial party’s elective conference.
Judges just happen to be unfortunate casualties in the struggle for the control of the ANC – with the country’s presidency being the ultimate prize.
However, choosing the judiciary as a rallying cry for her campaign to remove Ramaphosa could have disastrous consequences. By any measure and standards, undermining the rule of law is a recipe for chaos. It must never be encouraged in any democracy as it would signal the beginning of political dictatorship.
In other words, Sisulu wants politicians to be players and referees, and the law must come a distant second to politics.
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