Publication: Mail and Guardian Issued: Date: 2006-11-16 Reporter: Serjeant at the Bar

Where the Corruption Lies

 

Publication 

Mail and Guardian
Date

2006-11-16

Reporter

 Serjeant at the Bar[]

Web Link

www.mg.co.za

 

The misattribution of the phrase “a generally corrupt relationship” is neither a storm in a teacup nor a constitutional crisis *1. But it should not, under any circumstances, be used as a reason to build popular momentum for resistance against the possible laying of corruption charges against the ANC deputy president, Jacob Zuma.

The lobby pushing for such an outcome ignores the content of the Squires judgement and the appeal court’s confirmation of his findings. The appeal court quoted the trial court as saying: “It would be flying in the face of common sense and ordinary human nature to think that he [Schabir Shaik] did not realise the advantages to him of continuing to enjoy Zuma’s goodwill … And even if nothing was ever said between them to establish the mutually beneficial symbiosis that the evidence shows existed, the circumstances of the commencement and the sustained continuation thereafter of these payments, can only have generated a sense of obligation in the recipient.

“If Zuma could not repay money, how else could he do so than by providing the help of his name and political office as and when it was asked, particularly in the field of government-contracted work, which is what Shaik was hoping to benefit from? And Shaik must have foreseen and, by inference, did foresee that if he made these payments, Zuma would respond in that way.”

In its judgement on Shaik’s criminal appeal, the appeal court formed its own view of the symbiosis between Zuma and Shaik, saying it constituted an “overriding corrupt relationship” and a “sustained corrupt relationship”.

The media did not invent these phrases. The prosecution characterised the relationship as one of “general corruption” and Squires’s finding of “overwhelming” evidence in support of this charge could reasonably be seen as endorsing this description.

The first media reference following Shaik’s conviction *2 correctly reported the quote. Sapa stated: “Evidence of what the state claimed was a ‘generally corrupt’ relationship between Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Durban businessman Schabir Shaik was overwhelming, Judge Hilary Squires said in the Durban High Court on Wednesday.”

It is disingenuous for the Zuma camp, trade unions and communists to now reduce the entire judgement against Shaik, explicitly, and Zuma, implicitly, to three misattributed words. The two judgements refer to a massive scandal and abrogation of duty and it is to those that all citizens must now turn their attention. That scandal and abrogation do not lie in the misattribution of a phrase.

In the months following his judgement the phrase came to be ascribed to Squires himself, and that is wrong. There are lessons for the media and the judiciary in this imbroglio. Both institutions are vital in a democracy. There must be near-absolute confidence in both. While the appeal court judges did their work and did it well, the error should not have been made.

Media owners must also invest better in their newsrooms to ensure that there are enough skilled journalists to read judgements, synthesise arguments and do the arduous work of ensuring that there is no rush to print and to broadcast. The judiciary, like most institutions, can benefit from training and better resourcing.

What happened this week may have affected confidence in the two institutions but it cannot impact on the substance of the judgements passed and the reportage thereof.

There was a generally corrupt relationship and it was not between the judiciary and the media, as some now suggest.


Yengeni treats us like moegoes

Can you blame Tony Yengeni? If you were escorted into prison by the correctional services minister, the premier of the province in which you would serve your sentence and the speaker of the Parliament you had lied to, would you also not think that the sentence was all play-play?

Would you not think that the criminal justice system was meant to punish people who were not seniors in the ANC? Would you not also think that your party was being forced to be seen to be doing the right thing and that it had in fact given you a nod and a wink to do your own thing?

And so Yengeni treated his sentence with all the arrogance and bravado with which he treated his long fall from grace. With early parole promised after the gates had hardly clanged shut, he left for a weekend off after he had barely got in.

He drank with friends in his yard and he arrived back late.

He treats us like moegoes. But the public is tired of this nonsense, and his weekend off, along with his disrespect for the rules, has caused a storm. The same minister who toyi-toyi’d Tony into tjoekie was this week sounding entirely more serious and now Yengeni has had his privileges stripped pending an investigation.

It had better be a serious investigation. The nation is tiring of the double standards. There are 43 626 people awaiting trial, languishing in jail, and the parole system is being applied selectively across the penal system.

The credibility of the system is already buckling; it will collapse entirely if the ANC so flagrantly abuses it to mollycoddle its own errant sons.

With acknowledgements to Serjeant at the Bar[] and Mail & Guardian.


*1       Legally, it's a storm in a thimble.

In the Business Day political newsroom, it's an opportunity for the journalists not to publish the news, but be the news. Viva.


*2      There were also references to the term in the first few weeks of the trial.