Chairperson, hon Minister, welcome. A long, long time ago I said to the late Dullah Omar that he would be dispensing with justice as our first democratic Minister of Justice instead of dispensing justice, and I was only half joking, because we had embarked, at that challenging time, on the wholesale indemnification of and amnesty for people who had broken the law under the process that became known by the name of the commission that we legislated into life in this committee in 1995, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, TRC.
The unfinished business of that difficult process is still with us: It's still with the department; it's with the National Prosecuting Authority, the NPA; it's with us in the form of the applications for pardon; it's with us in the heartbreaking business of the exhumation of the remains of missing persons by an NPA unit; and it is or should be with us in the form of prosecution by the NPA's Priority Crimes Litigation Unit, of persons who failed to apply for amnesty or who failed to get it. That process should be with us, because if it is not, a de facto blanket amnesty has been introduced in favour of transgressors who defied the mercy offered and hoped to get away with it.
The unfinished business is, but should not be, with us in the form of the ever-growing amount left for community reparations in the President's Fund after the payment of R30 000 each to the designated survivors. Six years to the day today, on 24 June, when the decision on the distribution of the money was taken here in Parliament, the amount for community reparations now stands, after interest, at R900 000 000, and disbursements still await the finalisation of regulations. I hope the hon Minister will make matters like these his priority, especially as the recession begins to bite, rather than jousting with the judiciary.
Throughout the time of the TRC and thereafter we have said that it is important to restore the normal operation of the law and the respect for the consequences of breaking it. Our uncontained criminality only serves to underscore the point. It is obvious that respect for the courts is a necessary component of the restoration of the rule of law. Indeed, it is a precondition and it is, therefore, perhaps unfortunate that the hon Minister has, however indirectly, questioned the composition of the Bench, because one cannot do so without bringing its authority into question.
The DA wants black judges and coloured judges and Indian judges, not because we think, like the hon Ramatlhodi, that one's immutable characteristics render one incapable of neutrality, but because we believe a diverse society must be led and its Constitution interpreted by a leadership that reflects our many cultures and languages and experiences.
The DA wants women judges, but let us remember that the Constitution asks in the first place for fit and proper persons and for the consideration of pluralism only thereafter, and that something like parity has already been achieved in respect of race, as defined by the ANC, while Brigitte Mabandla, the hon Minister's predecessor, as he said, did just the right things on gender during her tenure. The Minister's director-general has excellent statistics on the present state of diversity on the Bench, which are readily available. We think that it cannot be the case that these are the factors which caused the hon Minister to interrupt the Judicial Service Commission, JSC, proceedings or to announce the reintroduction of the Mbeki Bills on the courts. And, therefore, we respectfully ask for more persuasive reasons than the broad departmental definitions of transformation for these steps.
Why does government really want to take charge of the administration of the courts? Why? There are some administrative functions that are inseparable from the judicial role, such as the drawing up of court rolls and deciding how many judges and which judges are to hear which cases, and that the government may not do.
Judge Michael Corbett wrote in 2006 that "any attempts to vest this function in a Minister must be treated as an assault on judicial independence", and he was not given to expressing himself strongly. Government has in fact tried to do this before, when the three Acts that give effect to the rights to equality, information and administrative justice were legislated in 2000. The Minister was allowed to designate presiding officers, not designate courts, which the Minister is now admirably doing, designating courts as equality courts. He was allowed to designate the presiding officers who could hear cases brought under these Acts. I called them Penuell's Poodles, because it was unacceptable that the then Minister Maduna should handpick his judges, especially when the Draft Equality Bill as it then was, expressly challenged the Constitutional Court's interpretation of equality - it did, the draft, before we fixed it - and especially when a departmental official at that time in 2000 told us quite frankly that she had a problem with "some judgments, with judges and their attitude". It sounds familiar to me. I am happy to say that the Penuell's Poodles' provision was repealed in 2002 from all three Acts, and I shamelessly said I told you so amidst many interjections by the hon Luwellyn Landers. He may have forgotten, but I have looked at the old Hansards. The Penuell's Poodles provision was repealed.
Now I sincerely hope, hon Minister, that I am not going to have to think up something that alliterates with the hon Minister's name this year to campaign against the Constitution 14th Amendment Bill. Government should not be intervening in the administration of the courts. The Constitution is clear, the certification judgment was clear, any number of other judgments written since then are clear, that independence includes institutional independence of which administrative control is an integral part.
Let's leave the judges to dispense justice. They alone can do the job and they must be left alone to do it. Thank you. [Applause.]