Qwelane won't be recalled - minister
2011-11-09 12:17
Cape Town - There are no plans to recall or act against SA High Commissioner to Uganda Jon Qwelane, International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said on Wednesday.
Nkoana-Mashabane was responding in writing to a parliamentary question by Kenneth Mubu of the DA.
Mubu wanted to know whether the government intended to recall or institute disciplinary action against Qwelane after he was found guilty of hate speech against homosexuals by the Equality Court in June.
Nkoane-Mashabane said the matter in question arose from an article which Qwelane wrote in his capacity as a columnist and long before his appointment as the high commissioner to Uganda.
Uphold values of the Constitution
"As a representative of the South African government in a foreign country, Mr Qwelane upholds the values and principles of the South African Constitution.
"South African envoys are made aware of the provisions of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, when addressing sensitive issues like the one quoted above."
On September 1, Qwelane won his bid for a rescission of the finding against him and, as matters stood at present, he was not guilty of any charges preferred against him by the SA Human Rights Commission, Nkoane-Mashabane said.
Qwelane applied for the rescission of a default judgment granted against him in the Equality Court so he could start afresh with the matter.
He had been found guilty of hate speech, but was not present at the default judgment because of his job abroad.
The commission opposed Qwelane's application, saying the reason for his absenteeism was poor and unacceptable.
Default judgment
Qwelane's counsel argued that the default judgment was not allowed and that an inquiry needed to be convened before such a judgment could be handed down.
The commission contended that a section of the Equality Act empowered the court to make an appropriate order.
Qwelane was granted a rescission of judgment by the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on September 1.
At the time, his attorney Andrew Boerner said the "initial battle has been won and now we begin [the] long road towards victory in the war for freedom of expression".
While still working as a journalist in 2008, Qwelane wrote a column published by the Sunday Sun in which he expressed his opinion about homosexuals.
The column was headlined "Call me names, but gay is NOT okay".
Commenting later, Mubu said Qwelane had "in the past made disparaging remarks about gay and lesbian people".
That the department had seen fit to appoint him as a representative of South Africa, particularly to a country which had seen vicious homophobic attacks, was a serious error of judgment, he said.
"The minister's attempt to defend her department's decision on the grounds that Qwelane's comments were made 'long before his appointment' are neither here nor there."
Qwelane's statements represented "deep-seated prejudice, and should have no place in our diplomatic corps".
Furthermore, the rescission of the Equality Court finding was decided on the basis of a legal technicality, not on the substance of Qwelane's problematic comments, Mubu said.
- SAPA