EFF STATEMENT ON RECENT UNWARRANTED ATTACKS ON THE JUDICIARY
Thursday, May 11, 2017
The EFF rejects the recent wave of statements from the Gupta faction of the ANC openly and unfairly attacking the judiciary for fulfilling its Constitutional mandate.
The illiterate response of the ANC means that it does not understand the democratic Constitution it claims to have brought to South Africa. This confirms our suspicions that in its desperation for political power, the ANC merely signed our land away without even reading the document.
Even a grade 1 child would not struggle to understand the meaning of section 2 of the Constitution which says, "This Constitution is the supreme law of the Republic. All law or conduct inconsistent with it is invalid and the obligations imposed by it must be fulfilled."
Needless to say, one of the obligations imposed by our Constitution is the rule of law and the rationality test. Simply put, one cannot test the rationality of executive decisions without looking into the reasoning followed when those decisions were taken.
This applies to all members of the executive which includes the President, the Deputy President and all Ministers.
Executive decisions are challenged for rationality on a daily basis in our courts. This has been the case for the past 23 years against every ANC President and every Minister, MEC, Mayor and the like from any political party.
Our belief is that the latest tantrums thrown by the ANC against the judiciary is not about the reshuffle case but a cynical ploy to intimidate the judiciary in relation to the secret ballot case scheduled to be heard on Monday 15 May 2017.
It is no coincidence that the KZN ANC has threatened to march to the judiciary on the same Monday 15 May 2017.
The ANC chose not to participate in the case when it was specifically invited to do so. Instead it has chosen to seek influence on the outcome by using thuggery, intimidation and insulting the judiciary, which is ominous to our young democracy.
We know that our judiciary will continue to act without prejudice, fear or favour irrespective of these cheap tactics. This does not detract from the fact that these desperate attempts at judicial intimidation are despicable and a threat to democracy and all freedom loving South Africans.
The EFF condemns these threats in the strongest possible terms and views them as one of the early warning signs of a looming dictatorship and repression on an unprecedented scale.
We warn the ANC never to underestimate how far our people are prepared to go in defense of the hard won freedoms contained in the Constitution which can only be changed by Parliament and interpreted and enforced by the Judiciary.
The South African judiciary is the only arm of the state which still has any credibility left. Judges are not allowed to defend themselves from public attacks. They can only talk through their judgments.
We therefore call on all freedom loving citizens to defend our judiciary from these unwarranted attacks by ANC hooligans.
Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 11 May 2017
