If there is one thing Madiba stressed over and over again, it was the fact that no one stands above the law. It is for this reason that he submitted himself and testified in court against the better judgement of his legal team in the Louis Luyt matter.
In this editorial, I am tempted to focus on the line of enquiry of the rule of law which is dominating public discourse at the moment, with Constitutional Court rulings involving former President Zuma as well as our current President and the Public Protector in the headlines. I am however drawn to pursue the question of the rule of law in relation to what is happening in small towns and villages in our country. This after some worrying recent personal experiences and multiple disturbing media reports.
The statistics on the state of smaller local authorities in South Africa tell a disturbing story. From over half of them being in serious financial difficulty to the majority of them failing the most basic of audit tests. From chronic and persistent failure to deliver services to growing community anger. No surprise that recurring community protests have become routine. To the point where very often they are reported on in daily traffic updates as much as anywhere else.
What these realities look like from the inside, leaves one feeling depressed. Last month, I spent time in a small place I thought I knew well. But the scale of the disregard for the rule of law, and the consequent unravelling of the social fabric, shocked me. Here the levers of local government are clearly in the hands of those intent on looting the public purse for private gain. The needs of local communities are furthest from their minds.
For communities this means, for instance, roads which are close to unusable. It means cable theft happening in broad daylight, with no consequence except the ongoing damage to service delivery capacity. It means policing conspicuous by its absence. It means illegal mining operations which rely on water stolen from the municipal supply. In one instance, I was told a retirement village had no water for months because of this, and when the municipality finally fixed the pipe it was re-broken by the miners in the presence of the municipal workers.
This can’t be right. What I am describing is a scenario in which the law is rendered meaningless because there seem to be no rules. Lawlessness has become normalised. And the rule of law is just a dream.
What of the deep rural villages in our country? Two recent court rulings have highlighted challenges faced by rural-dwellers in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. We welcome these rulings, for they assert the constitutional rights of those who live on the land and remind those who exercise power over them that in a democracy no power can be arbitrary. These are steps in the right direction.
For too long rural-dwellers have been subject to the whims of their leadership rather than the rule of law. For instance, it can’t be right that a community which was forcibly removed during the apartheid era can now be forcibly removed by its own leadership because the latter has entered into a deal with a mining company. It can’t be right that onerous rents are imposed on a community which has traditional rights of access to land. It can’t be right that the rights of women are subjected to a custom rooted in colonial-era codification.
So much of the public discourse around the rule of law focuses on what is happening in our big cities and in the sphere of national government. What people are experiencing in small towns and villages is equally important, if we are to understand the full extent of the challenge facing us and if we are to begin finding sustainable solutions.
The future of our democracy is at stake!