Thabo Mbeki: ‘Our character is beyond price’ in R167m TRC legal battle

FORMER president Thabo Mbeki and erstwhile justice minister Brigitte Mabandla want to intervene in the R167 million constitutional damages can brought by survivors and victims of apartheid human rights violations to protect their reputations.

- LOYISO SIDIMBA

For several years, Mbeki and Mabandla have been accused of exerting political pressure on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Police not to pursue hundreds of cases referred to law enforcement agencies by Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

Earlier this year, several survivors and family members of victims of gross human rights violations under apartheid and the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR) approached the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.

The survivors and victims’ relatives want a high court order declaring that conduct by the office currently run by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government, Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Ronald Lamola, his police counterpart Bheki Cele, National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi and SAPS divisional commissioner General Fannie Masemola in unlawfully refraining and or obstructing the investigation and or prosecution of apartheid-era cases referred by the TRC to the NPA or unlawfully abandoning or undermining them.

They also want the conduct to be declared a violation of their right and more generally the rights of victims and survivors of apartheid crimes to equality, dignity, and the right to life and bodily integrity in terms of the Constitution.

The conduct has been asked to declare the conduct inconsistent with constitutional values and the rule of law as enshrined in the Constitution as well as the principles, values, and obligations arising from the Preamble of National Unity and Reconciliation read with the postscript to the Constitution.