Publication: Sunday Independent Issued: Date: 2007-03-25 Reporter: Karen Bliksem

Hell Hath No Fury Like a High Court Judge - or Me Listening to Harare Apologists

 

Publication 

Sunday Independent

Date

2007-03-25

Reporter

 Karen Bliksem

Web Link

www.sundayindependent.co.za

 

For 30 years, three decades, 360 months, I have been waiting patiently - and patience is not the greatest of my few virtues - to write that "so-and-so went incandescent with rage".

C'mon, you have to admit it's a lovely word.

Incandescent: emitting light as a result of being heated to a high temperature; from the Latin incandescere, to become hot.

And, at about 3.50pm on Thursday, the moment finally arrived.

The locus was Pietermaritzburg high court's court A, where - as Phillip Levinsohn, the deputy judge president (DJP) of KwaZulu-Natal, had just noted - the air conditioning was not working very well.

Not only that. The DJP had spent the whole day listening to a not very riveting *1 assertion that the National Prosecuting Authority had filched some documents from a French arms manufacturer's offices in an unacceptable manner.

To my way of thinking, if you're the reps of a national prosecuting authority and you're in another country, you ought not to be filching stuff anyway *2. (And if you're in Mauritius, you definitely ought not to be filching stuff - you ought to be down at the beach.) But, then again, to my way of thinking, one ought not to be an arms manufacturer anyway. But, well, it takes all sorts. Life's rich tapestry, and all that.

Anyway, so the DJP of KZN had been listening to William John Downer SC, a senior prosecutor from the NPA, explaining all this stuff at some length in the clammy heat and he was saying disapprovingly to young Billy: "And, by the way, what are all these papers that have been flooding in about this matter? I mean, didn't we set up a timetable back in December? I mean (harrumph) why are people putting in lengthy heads-of-argument and supplementary affidavits? I mean, what's this all about?"

"Well, I don't know, milud," replied Downer, looking suitably shocked and appalled at the behaviour of his learned friends, though he knew the answer perfectly well, as did one of my learned friends - no names, no pack drill - who remarked, not so sotto voce: "What a stupid question for Levinsohn to ask! They put in all those new heads and supplementary affidavits every three days because they want to f*** with Billy's head, that's why!"

Anyway, having made his point to an approving chorus, and with only about 10 minutes left on the clock, and the prospect of a gin and tonic or three awaiting him back in Durbs by the sea, as well as some delightful hours of World Cup cricket on the box, the DJP turned to Kemp J "Unkempt" Kemp SC, the senior representative of Jacob "Zoom Zoom" Zuma, and asked him if he would like to kick off - knowing full well that Kemp would choose to back off till the morrow.

Which is what Kemp chose to do. But, he said to the DJP, he did have to hand up some heads-of-argument.

"You want to hand me 69 pages of heads? At this stage? From the bar?" asked Levinsohn, almost levitating with indignation.

"I would almost say that it's discourteous, Mr Kemp … I know other judges who are complaining about [the practice] and I'm not impressed."

The DJP was not only incandescent but almost speechless with rage.

The trouble is that Kemp is not only an unfailingly courteous and gracious fellow - as is Levinsohn, mostly, let it be said - but Kemp is also that rare animal, an intemellectual and a fellow who really knows his oats.

So, of course, Kemp immediately gets up on his hind legs and quotes former Natal judge president Allan Howard on the subject of precisely which heads need to go in and when, thereby embarrassing the DJP even further…

Oh dear.

But if you think the DJP was incandescent, you should have heard Michael "Hully-gully" Hulley, Zuma's attorney and therefore Kemp's bag man, after Hully-gully had read reports in the media about the fracas.

Goodness gracious me, I was talking to Hully-gully on my cell and he turned so incandescent 90km away that I had to drop it in a bucket of ice on the top of the bar in which I had happened to rest my laptop, fountain pen and notebook momentarily.

"Geez, you guys in the media are so stupid, I can't believe it," said Hully-gully.

"The person who wrote this article reports that Levinsohn shouts at Kemp, but he doesn't explain that Kemp was completely within his rights *3, that he was behaving impeccably as an officer of the court and was completely vindicated. Is that the way to treat a professional man?"

Actually, it's been a week for turning incandescent. If you think that the DJP and Hully-gully were emitting light as a result of being heated to a high temperature, you ought to have had sight of me.

There I was, sitting quietly in my hotel room in Pietermaritzburg, minding my own business, when Aziz Pahad, the deputy foreign minister, comes on the box and, throwing about his arms a great deal, as is his wont, explains in painstaking detail that "we" have not been engaged in quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe but in "constructive diplomacy", or some such insulting codswallop, and really, don't we South Africans understand anything, and all, and all…

And he was followed by that moon-faced creature - I don't even know his name - who represents "us" at the UN, explaining to the world that what took place in Zimbabwe - Morgan Tsvangerai's bloated face and cracked skull, the purple bruises all over his supporters' bodies - was merely the fruit of a bit of political bickering, not a human rights violation at all.

I was incandescent with shame.

With acknowledgements to Karen Bliksem and Sunday Independent.


*1       He means "not very convincing.


*2      Jeremy Gordin, aka Karen Bliksem, at her nonsensical best.

The NPA was acting within all the legal formalities required by Mauritian and South African law.


*3      Kemp may have been within his rights, completely or otherwise, but when one's argument is as weak as one's client's pockets are deep, then discretion is the better part of valour.