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
Moseneke’s pay rise
Comments made about members of Parliament have been met with anger by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) deputy Chief Whip Sybil Seaton. She took exception to Judge Dikgang Moseneke‘s “derogatory” comments about members of Parliament after he completed a review on the remuneration of public office bearers. News24 Reports:
Referring to increases given to MPs, Moseneke told a Sunday newspaper: “We found an ingenious way of getting MPs off their backsides to do some constituency work.” Seaton called his comments disrespectful and belittling of MPs. “Yes, there might be MPs who sit on their ‘backsides’ doing very little, but so too do some judges and magistrates,” she said.
The MP queried the review committee’s approval of “huge” increases for magistrates and judges. “So how does Judge Moseneke justify their increases? Will those massive salary increases help get the judiciary off their “backsides”? I don’t think so,” Seaton added.
