Some 650 years ago, King Edward the Third of England was dancing at a court ball with Joan, Countess of Salisbury, when her garter fell to the floor. Courtiers snigfgered, but the king (who had established the Order of the Garter around 1348) quickly picked it up, put it round his own leg, and uttered what was to become the Order's famous motto, Honi Soit Qui Mfal Y Pense.
How does this translate? Alan Hamilton in The Times offers this less respectful English version: "Don't even think about it, you dirty-minded little knights". A more precise translation of the old French would be "Shame be to him who thinks evil of it". Or more popularly, "Evil to him who evil thinks." The original wording is inscribed on the Garter and on the front cover of British passports. The point is made: the untouchability of the sovereign (and, as we will see, of other national leaders as well).
What has this to do with Jacob Zuma? Be patient, and all will be revealed.
Prince William
A very English ceremony took place in St George's Chapel, Windsor June 17, when the Queen conferred on Prince William the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the pinnacle of Britain's honours system. Membership of the Order is restricted to the Sovereign and no more than twenty-five full members or Companions. King Edward may have hoped the Order would revive the legend of King Arthur's mythical Round Table. The Garter pertains to England only and, along with the Royal Victorian Order, is in the sole gift of the sovereign, unlike the thousands of other honours (peerages, knighthoods, Dames, OBEs, etc.) that are distributed on the recommendation of the prime minister.
(To digress: the honours system, as Hamilton sees it, is "a reflection of the continuing obsession with class and privilege in Britain." He recalls an amusing canard: "The bottom rung of the (Order of St.) Michael [and St.George] is Commander, bringing the letters CMG, which is said to stand for Call Me God. Next up is a Knight, with the initials KCMG: Kindly Call Me God. Top rung of all is GCMG, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George which stands, naturally, for God Calls Me God)".
Financial Mail
We switch now to a Johannesburg newspaper office during the early 1970s when George Palmer was editor of the Financial Mail. One of the staff writers researching the property market came to him with a draft report that a couple of years earlier the Minister of Economic Affairs had acquired a large tract of land south of Johannesburg at an unusually attractive price from a real estate developer. This raised obvious questions. So George took the draft to Kelsey Stewart, the FM's legal adviser who was adept at suggesting wording that would reduce the risk of libel actions. On reading the draft, Kelsey said: "Sorry George, I can't help you this time".
Why not? Because the Minister had subsequently been appointed State President. And although South Africa had already left the Commonwealth and become a republic, its new constitution had retained the ancient injunction "Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense."
Kelsey advised George that if the FM published the story, there would be no defence available to a charge of having brought "disrepute upon the sovereign". The FM was used to sailing close to the wind, but on this occasion discretion was the better part of valour.
In The Newspaperman's Guide to the Law, Kelsey explains that "In terms of the Republic of South Africa Constitution Act it is an offence to commit any act which is calculated to violate the dignity or injure the reputation of the State President or an Acting State President.
Penalties are a fine up to £2,000 or imprisonment up to five years." This provision was omitted from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act drawn up by the ANC after it took control of the government in 1994.
(The point is: Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense may no longer have a statutory basis in South Africa, but its footprint (to use a modern term) is universal. It helps sustain an aura of entitlement among heads of governments and states. In practice it has meant that no matter how criminal and corrupt a ruler has been or how ill-suited for the post, he/she is entitled to special treatment, such as escape from the hangman's noose, and the ex-ruler receiving a generous pension and comfortable exile).
Jacob Zuma
We come now to Jacob Zuma. His trial on 18 corruption and related charges looms ahead.
Over the centuries, sovereigns and conquerors have escaped retribution because of their elevated status (although often, too, they have been put up against a wall and shot, like Romania's barbaric Nicolai Ceacesceau). The other categories are (a) dictators and tyrants who have entrenched themselves behind praetorian guards until, one day, the barricades are torn down by the mob and they are hauled off in the tumbrils, or (b) the same thuggish rulers invoke Hone Soit Qui Mal Y Pense and strike a retirement or exile deal.
Like Idi Amin, Uganda's butcher. Saudi Arabia took him in along with his entourage, and provided him with a house and pension until he died. There was Haiti's feared "Papa Doc" Duvalier (exiled in France), Ethiopia's reviled Colonel Mengistu Haili Mariam (exiled in Zimbabwe), Poland's General Wojciech Jaruzelski (remained in Poland). As for Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, will he face the International Criminal Court, or he will be accorded a safe and comfortable retirement somewhere in Africa or Asia, facilitated by his friend and ally, South Africa's Thabo Mbeki?
As for Mbeki himself, he has many enemies. He has been accused of genocide for failure to provide adequate antiretroviral drugs for HIV-positive mothers, but there is no concerted campaign as yet to haul him before the International Criminal Court. Nor is there any apparent desire within the ANC to initiate impeachment proceedings against him in parliament.
The state's declared intention is still to haul Zuma before a High Court and charge him with corruption. If convicted, he would be debarred by the constitution from taking office. Zuma is due to appear in the Pietermartizburg High Court on August 14 2008. His legal team's strategy - made possible by unlimited funding from the taxpayer - is to perpetually kick that date into touch. Business Day reported this week that Zuma's legal team planned to institute various new appeals and applications which could see his "criminal trial delayed well into next year, if not for another two years."
Meanwhile, Zuma's political backers are waging a ferocious campaign to derail his trial before it ever comes to court. Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille noted in her weekly online newsletter last Friday that: "Events in the past few weeks have confirmed that Jacob Zuma will do everything in his power to avoid justice. We are witnessing a concerted and sustained campaign being waged by his allies, his lawyers and also, possibly, a sympathetic judge to ensure that Zuma accedes to the Presidency and stays there. Zuma's guilt or innocence is secondary to this imperative."
If present trends continue it seems likely that that Zuma's trial will be deferred beyond the 2009 elections. Not only will no verdict have been reached in his trial by the time the April elections take place, but a new National Assembly will have been elected and the ANC majority in the Assembly will have voted Zuma into the presidency.
Once in power Zuma would have various options with which to scupper his trial - from a change in the law to grant the president immunity to the appointment of a pliant National Director of Public Prosecutors who would ensure that the charges were reviewed and then dropped. Legally Zuma could still be tried and convicted.
Politically, many South Africans may simply lose the will to ensure that the law takes its course - once it means the bringing down of a sitting president. It will be ironic indeed if the Noble Order of the Garter comes to Zuma's rescue (not with the pomp and circumstance at which the English are masters, but with "sponsors" for whom the best description is rofugh trade). The contention would be that it was for the country's peace and stability that the trial should be aborted. Or the outcome be declared invalid.
It doesn't take much imagination to visualise Zuma standing before the nation, pulling the Garter up to his left knee (as required) and then, with one of his trade mark chuckles, proclaiming Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense.
