Publication: The Weekender Issued: Date: 2007-01-20 Reporter: Tim Cohen Reporter:

How The Yengeni Principle is Applied

 

Publication 

The Weekender

Date

2007-01-20

Reporter

 Tim Cohen

Web Link

www.bday.co.za

 

The law loves a good phrase. Hence, we have pro deo representation if there is a prima facie case; we have things like the nasciturus fiction; we have of course Miranda warnings. This is all supposed to be res ipsa loquitur except, of course, it isn’t and doesn’t. So, what about a new one: The Yengeni Principle.

The Yengeni Principle works like this: you have certain responsibility to the state, like paying taxes and obeying the law. But unfortunately, in certain circumstances, your personal approach might be such that you don’t really give a hoot. In these circumstances, you may apply for the application of The Yengeni Principle.

For example, the SABC requires me to pay R275 a year for the right to be a victim of its newscasts. However, my personal circumstances are such that I don’t really give much of a toss for biased propaganda. In these circumstances, I am permitted to apply The Yengeni Principle, and my responsibility is reduced to about 10% of the original sum.

Why about 10%? Because, of course, it is now an established precedent that if you really don’t believe that what you did was wrong, you only have to serve 10% of your sentence.

Tony Yengeni went to jail to serve a four-year prison sentence, after lying to Parliament and pleading guilty to a charge of fraud, and spent just more than four months in jail. To some, this might seem a miscarriage of justice. But Yengeni claims that he has not been specially treated.

This is not only good news for him, but good news for all of us. If he got special treatment, then the case would constitute a one-off instance of political favouritism. Since there was no special treatment, it naturally expands into something much more grand and far-reaching ­ a precedent. And once it becomes a precedent, we can all benefit from, you guessed it, The Yengeni Principle.

Actually, I’m not so sure he didn’t get special treatment.

Apparently he benefited from a sentence reduction announced by President Thabo Mbeki in 2005, long before he got to prison. I was under the obviously erroneous impression that a sentence remission applies to prisoners serving their sentence at the time of the proclamation. You might think a remission would apply to those prisoners, not to all sentences applied to all prisoners for all time. This is also good news for everyone, especially future criminals who might not have considered what their reduced responsibility might be for crimes they have not even considered committing.

So, when the court applies The Yengeni Principle, your R500 speeding fine becomes a R50 obligation, your rates bill suddenly becomes affordable, and the amount you pay for your driver’s licence becomes loose change.

But there is a need for caution. The Yengeni Principle will not be applied in all cases. It would appear to be a condition for the application of the principle that you should not fully appreciate the wrongfulness of your actions. Hence, if you think that speeding is bad, then, alas, the principle will not apply. But if you really don’t appreciate that thumping along in a moving lump of steel at full vortex might be undesirable, then the principle kicks in.

It may also be that the principle applies only in circumstances in which it’s possible to claim prior injustice, which obviously justifies reduced responsibility for breaking the law in the future. Many claim Yengeni should not have got this sentence in the first place, and even if he did do wrong, if it’s possible to forgive apartheid criminals, it should be easy to forgive Yengeni.

In truth, it is easy to forgive Yengeni. As HL Mencken said, injustice is relatively easy to bear; it is justice that hurts.

With acknowledgements to Tim Cohen and The Weekender.


Philosopher Tim is at it again.