Quote of the week
[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
The JSC, in its answering affidavit sworn to by a member who is a senior advocate, refused to divulge the relevant facts by stating that it was the policy of the JSC ‘not to publish how members voted with regard to any particular decision’ and that ‘the JSC has never published the particulars of the vote with regard to the size of the majority and the way each member decided’. An evasive answer like this by senior counsel on behalf of a body like the JSC cannot be countenanced. It is the number of members who voted either way, not their identities, that is relevant. The JSC knew that this information was crucial for the determination of an issue legitimately raised and upon which the court would be required to adjudicate. Nor is this attitude of the JSC reconcilable with our constitutional democracy which values openness and transparency, and this is particularly so when regard is had to the constitutional functions and obligations of the JSC. – Supreme Court of Appeal in a judgment challenging the exclusion of the Western Cape Premier from a JSC hearing
