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Justice Minister Ronald Lamola receives a memo from Reverend Frank Chikane of the Defend Our Democracy campaign. Image: Ministry of Justice.
- The Defend Our Democracy campaign was launched last week.
- A delegation from the campaign met with the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola.
- The group says it has obtained more than 8,500 signatures of support.
A delegation from the Defend Our Democracy campaign met with Justice Minister Ronald Lamola on Wednesday to deliver a statement detailing its “key calls.”
The campaign launched last week and has so far garnered more than 8,500 signatures of support. It has also been endorsed by more than 50 organizations from various sectors.
“The campaign was launched to defend our constitutional democracy, demand responsibility for capture and corruption, support the defense of the rule of law and call for an end to baseless attacks directed against the judiciary,” a statement read.
The movement is also concerned about former President Jacob Zuma’s defiance of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry and the Constitutional Court.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Reverend Frank Chikane told the minister that there was a “threat to our democracy and a threat to destabilize democracy because people don’t want to go to jail.”
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The state must make sure that people who committed crimes or worked outside the law are held accountable. We are not going to allow them to bring down the country with us.
He also said that those who committed the alleged crimes “should go to jail in peace.”
We are dealing with criminals who destabilize the country because they don’t want to go to jail.
Lamola agreed with the group that the Constitution should continue to be protected.
He said:
As a department, we work with various civil societies in the advancement of the Constitution and in the defense of the Constitution in the various rights that are enshrined in the Constitution. Therefore, it is important that the Constitution continues as a living document that must be protected, and we have always said that we consider the Constitution to be sacrosanct and a rule of law.
“It is a sacrosanct component of our democracy, which we all have to respect and adhere to,” Lamola said.
He said South Africans must allow the National Tax Authority (NPA) and the judiciary to do their jobs, without fear or favor.
“The unfortunate part is that [the NPA] is doing [its] work with very serious fiscal restrictions and very limited resources, which for the first time in almost five years now we have allowed them to start hiring to fill some of the positions, but also to get some specialists who can help them in some of the complexes and difficult cases that they are driving. “
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We also want to tell yourself [the delegation] that the concerns you share are those shared by the department. All of us, the government and people of this country, have a responsibility to ensure that the Constitution remains protected.
The group says it will show its support for the “rule of law” on Thursday when the Constitutional Court hears Zuma’s contempt case.
During its press conference last week, the group called on South Africans to “vigorously oppose” the threat to democracy and defend the Constitution.
ANC veteran Sheila Sisulu read a statement saying that the former president, who was once described in a Constitutional Court ruling as the personification of the country’s “constitutional being”, was now challenging it. court.
He added that the “staggering defiance” of the court order not only “violates the law, but attacks the Constitution itself.”
“While the normal deliberative institutional processes necessary for such an attack are being carried out, the former president, frustrated by the impeccable conduct of an independent judiciary, has now launched a malicious attack against the judiciary and, in particular, against the Constitutional Court , a cornerstone of the Constitution.
“The threat to the Constitution goes beyond that posed by an individual. It also illustrates how the individual embodies a political culture fundamentally antithetical to democracy.”
