Criminals' rights contradictory

2003-06-03 16:21

Cape Town - It was contradictory that criminals could call on the protection of the Constitution after violating the rights of others, Deputy President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.

"(We) can't have wonderful rights and everything whilst people are dying," he told an anti-crime meeting at Bonteheuwel on the gang-ridden Cape Flats.

He also said the law should be interpreted "in a particular way" to deal with crime.

Zuma, who was accompanied by Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula and Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo, also said it was contradictory that lawyers, who were the interpreters of the law, should be defending criminals.

"So you have a situation where indirectly the lawyers are actually helping the crime," he told several hundred members of the local community.

Earlier, he had listened as sobbing parents told him how their children were slain in gang crossfire, or deliberately targeted by gangs, and how the body of a 12-year-old girl from Ravensmead was found raped and mutilated in a sewer.

He said these stories were "chilling and painful".

"We need to do extraordinary things to deal with this crime," he said.

Criminals used the Constitution itself to "protect their criminal deeds", and something should be done about this.

The way the law, including the Constitution, was interpreted, should "show the difference" in dealing with those who infringed the rights of citizens.

"They will say (they) are protected by the Constitution et cetera.

"I am saying, if... I don't respect the Constitution when it comes to your rights, and I violate your rights, and therefore violate the very Constitution, and when it comes to me, I want the Constitution to protect me, I'm saying there's a contradiction in the manner in which we handle it.

"Those kind of cases must indicate the difference."

Asked whether this approach might not run into opposition in human rights circles, he said: "Society has run in(to) the difficulty of losing people who have been killed. We must again weigh that.

"(We) can't have wonderful rights and everything while people are dying. We are talking about a real situation here."

Referring to the differences in policing of Bonteheuwel and the wealthy Cape Town suburb of Bishopscourt, he said: "You can't treat a hardened criminal like any other human being, like any other citizen."

Responding to a call from the floor to bring back the death penalty, and to make an example by "slaughter(ing) at least one gang", he said he did not have time then to explain in proper detail why executions had been abolished.

He also said he would be happy to come back one day to defend members of the community who had "acted against criminals properly and people think you have broken the law".

Nqakula said he and Zuma understood the call for the death penalty as a call for criminals to be dealt with more effectively.

"Let us ensure that we put people behind bars and they stay there for a long time. That is what you are saying," he said.

Nqakula also rejected a call for the reinstatement of corporal punishment in schools, saying it dehumanised children and perpetuated a cycle of violence.

Soon afterwards Zuma, illustrating a point about moral regeneration and parental authority, said that when he was young an adult who saw someone else's child doing wrong would immediately discipline the youngster with a "little stick".

"You mustn't do that," he added hastily.

- SAPA