Generally corrupt relationship 13 - 11 - 06

Generally corrupt relationship

The national office bearers of the Congress of South African Trade Unions met today and noted the letter from Judge Hilary Squires in which he states that, in his judgement of Schabir Shaik, he never used the phrase that there was “a generally corrupt relationship” between Shaik and ANC Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

COSATU apologises to the judge for comments it has made about him and his judgement which were based on false media reports which put these words into his mouth. The media should follow suit and apologise for the damage their misreporting of the judge’s words has inflicted on the people involved, especially Jacob Zuma. So too should all the commentators and analysts who based their observations on these false reports.

These reports gave a clear impression that Jacob Zuma had been tried and found guilty in absentia, on the basis of evidence led in another person’s trial, and the public debate has centred around this perception.

This has seriously damaged his reputation and prejudiced his chances of a possible fair trial against the corruption charges levelled against him. There is now an even stronger case for dropping all these charges, as COSATU has been demanding, given that a fair trial is now out of the question.

Even worse, his dismissal as Deputy President of South Africa was justified on the basis of the remarks wrongly attributed to Judge Squires. The judge’s comment now negates the arguments that were used to justify his dismissal and he should therefore be immediately reinstated to his position, as demanded by the COSATU 9th National Congress.

COSATU is also demanding the resignation or dismissal of the five Supreme Court of Appeal judges, whose rejection of the appeal by Schabir Shaik against his convictions for fraud and corruption, was premised on their belief that Judge Squires had made the finding that he now denies.

It is inexcusable for such senior judges not to have even studied the transcript of the original trial but repeated what they had read in media reports of what the trial judge is supposed to have said. South African citizens can have no confidence in judges who can make such an elementary mistake. What chance will ordinary citizens of getting a fair hearing if such senior judges are as careless as this in such a high-profile case?

This only feeds into perceptions that exist in our ranks that state organs are deployed to deal with certain targeted people.