To arrest or not to arrest is no longer the question – National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula will be arrested for allegedly accepting bribes of millions of rand from a contractor when she was defence minister.
The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday dismissed Mapisa-Nqakula’s bid to have her arrest delayed.
I cannot for the life of me understand why the judges are giving politicians preferential allocation and audience when it comes to spurious endless pre-trial litigation cases.
What happened to “if you do the crime you must do the time”?
Don’t the same considerations raised by Mapisa-Nqakula apply to many ordinary men and women being investigated and charged for various crimes?
Why must Mapisa-Nqakula get access to a police docket before the police investigations are complete and the usual disclosure of a docket unfolds per the normal criminal process?
Why can’t she wait for the docket like any other accused person?
Even during bail proceedings, the accused person is not entitled to access to a police docket.
How can the police properly do their work of investigating while the suspect or alleged offender is hovering and peeping over the police’s shoulder peeking at what they have discovered so far?
When the African National Congress 2007 Polokwane Conference did away with the Scorpions, was this the “Animal Farm” special treatment the politically connected elites and leaders envisaged for themselves?
I can’t fathom the fact that an urgent court is even entertaining an application that is essentially an obstruction of justice from taking its normal course in accordance with the constitutionally enshrined equality before the law.
Already the Hawks are giving these political elites, accused of Schedule 6 offences because of the amount involved in corruption and fraud cases, special treatment of not being detained overnight and readily getting bail while the rest of us sleep in custody for trivial offences like shoplifting.
*The writer of this article is Nhlanhla Mbatha, an independent media practitioner based in Johannesburg. The views expressed by Nhlanhla Mbatha are not necessarily those of The Bulrushes
