Source: DA begins legal fight against Grace immunity – DailyNews Live
Gift Phiri 26 August 2017
HARARE – South African opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) yesterday
launched a Constitutional Court (Con-Court) battle seeking a declaration
that the decision by the minister of International Relations and
Cooperation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to grant diplomatic immunity to
Zimbabwe First Lady Grace Mugabe be declared unconstitutional and invalid.
With passions inflamed by the decision to let Grace leave the neighbouring
country after it was claimed she whipped 20-year-old model Gabriella
Engels with an electrical cord in a luxury hotel room in Johannesburg, the
DA want the diplomatic immunity set aside arguing it was wholly without
legal merit.
This comes as advocacy group AfriForum, which is giving legal backing to
Engels, and is working on the case with Gerrie Nel – the prosecutor who
secured a murder conviction against Oscar Pistorius – also started taking
legal action over the government’s decision to grant her diplomatic
immunity on Wednesday.
The DA filed papers in the Con-Court yesterday requesting direct access to
the apex court, citing Nkoana-Mashabane, SA President Jacob Zuma, Engels
and national director of public prosecutions as respondents.
The DA argued in its urgent application that the decision by
Nkoana-Mashabane, in granting immunity, was “hasty, embarrassing and above
all illegal and unconstitutional”.
“It is frankly unconscionable that after the scathing ruling by the
Constitutional Court in the Al Bashir matter that the ANC-led government
would once again let a high-profile person escape justice in South
Africa,” the court papers say.
The International Criminal Court last month rebuked South Africa for not
arresting Sudan’s president on a genocide warrant when he visited
Johannesburg in 2015, but declined to refer Pretoria to the United Nations
for possible censure over the lapse.
The DA, led by Musi Maimane, said it was clear that Grace was granted
immunity simply to shield her from being tried in a court of law for her
assault on Engels and two others on August 13.
It said in its Con-Court papers that condoning such behaviour, as the
granting of immunity did, cannot possibly be in the interests of South
Africa.
“There is therefore no legal basis for such a decision,” the court papers
said.
The DA said Grace is not a member of the Zimbabwean government and she was
in South Africa on personal business.
“There is nothing in either South African or international law which
renders her deserving of diplomatic immunity,” it argued, adding the
incident is yet another example of how the ANC-led government is intent on
protecting the elite of Africa by abusing its statutory powers at the
expense of justice for ordinary South Africans.
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