There are two basic flaws in our Constitution which made it possible for Zuma to lead us into such a mess. One we all know about: the proportional representation system which enables the winning party to appoint the Member of Parliament for that constituency. Doesn’t matter where he/she comes from – A Khoi from Kuruman could be the MP for Cape Town, A Xhosa from Mtata the MP for Thohoyandou. And they will all vote as they are ordered in open balloting (probably in secret ballots as well) because if they don’t, they will lose their seats and fat incomes and return to nothing status. All ballots should be made secret.
The other is less obvious: the Constitutionally enforced gap between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – none may interfere in the doings of any other. The legislature may pass all the rulings it wants but can do nothing to enforce them. Parliament does what it likes with its built-in majority, a Speaker chosen by the ruling party (with all that implies), a president who has treated it with contempt, and an entrenched majority.
What is vital for the future is to bridge the gap between the Legislature (Parliament), the Executive (the President) and the Judiciary (the Constitutional Court and all lesser courts subject to its rulings). It is this gulf which has caused us so much grief since Thuli Madonsela’s Nkandla report and Zuma’s retaliation of setting up an inquiry into it, thus giving him the and time and leeway to treat the whole country as his backyard and flog bits of it to the Guptas and their likes.
The Constitutional Court, or even the Chief Justice acting with, say, a committee of three other Court members, should have had the power to veto Zuma’s call for an inquiry and order the government to press forward with the Court’s recommendation for an investigation headed by a judge chosen by the Court. and order action based on Madonsela’s report, which contained more than enough prima facie evidence to warrant investigation leading to prosecutions. The Court, after all heads the entire legal structure of the country including prosecutors. That doesn’t, unfortunately, include the power to appoint the chief of police. It should, and the Minister of Police too – to ensure its rulings are enforced. Our present definition as the three divisions being “distinctive, interdependent and interrelated is is” wrong. The first two, maybe; the last, no.
One of Ramaphosa’s first actions as national president must be to bridge this gulf so that no present or future president (I am not suggesting he might, though you never know) can do this again. We have a system to amend the Constitution which has been used, to the best of my knowledge, 16 or 17 times already. Let’s do it again.
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MY WORDS 