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David Webster’s role in the DPSC: a fearless defence of the principles of legality and due process by Glenda Webster

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For the purpose of this essay, I have drawn on the definition of the rule of law given by WJ Hosten, AB Edwards, Frances Bosman and Joan Church. All are equal before the law and have the right to equal protection and benefits of the law. 10 According to Andrew JH Henderson in "The curative powers of the Constitution: Constitutionalism and the new ultra vires doctrine in the justification and explanation of the judicial review of administrative action".

Whatever the size of the police force at the time, it was likely in the thousands. Nicholas Haysom had experienced conditions that were 'under the instructions of the Minister for Justice'. Certainty of what the law is is an important aspect of the rule of law.

We believe in the sovereignty of the law as the basis for protecting the fundamental rights of both individuals and groups. On appeal by the Minister of Law and Order, a plenary session of the AD upheld the decision of the lower court. Since the police had not discharged themselves of the burden of proving the existence of the fact on which their "reason to believe" was based, the arrest was not "according to" the remit of the Homeland Security Act.

13 The DPSC’s strategies

59 Max Coleman 'David Webster and the Detainees Parents Support Committee' a tribute at the opening of the David Webster Park in Bertrams, unpublished, Johannesburg, 1 May 2009. Court actions against the police, including inquests: names of the litigants, the claims and the trial dates. Finally, a summary of legislative amendments during the month, if any, and the implication of the amendments for the work of the DPSC.

This strategy of monitoring and exposing human rights violations was the activity that incurred the wrath of the apartheid government's cabinet ministers, perhaps more than any other. Role of the Attorney General's Office in the investigation, formulation and prosecution of charges against detained persons.66. Despite the Minister's refusal to 'participate in an organized question-and-answer campaign by telegram'72 a month later, on 11 March 1982, he informed the DPSC that he was prepared to meet with them .

Before the meeting, the DPSC had sent a copy of the embargoed memorandum to the press.74. By 1983, the government's antagonism to the DPSC's 'sensational press-oriented behaviour' was to grow loud and clear. Parliament, Colin Eglin, the leader of the Progressive Federal Party, raised questions about special standing instructions that had been issued to the security police after the death of Steve Biko in 1978.

The Minister of Law and Order replied that he did not intend to 'submit himself to the cross-examination of the reverend. An analysis of the DPSC's published statement and/or documents, their official positions, their connection with certain people and/or organizations, as well as their sensational, press-oriented behavior, leaves me in no doubt that this organization is a pressure group that . One of the main causes of this steady increase in detentions was deep dissatisfaction among the black population over the fact that the entire black population was excluded from a referendum held on 2 November 1983.

Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Finance, one of the 1981 detainees, and a founding member of the UDF, wrote about this event 30 years later, describing it as —. the most formidable internal opposition to apartheid since the 1960s. According to a report of the Catholic Bishops' Conference for the period August to November 1984, '(i)n a number of cases the presence, and especially the attitude of the police, provoked public violence'96. Undaunted by the ominous threats of the Minister of Law and Order in Parliament, but aware of the presence of assassinations (albeit not in that name), the DPSC continued its exposure of apartheid violations of the rule of law.

The Lekoa City Council was the first to be elected under the provisions of the BLA.

20 According to Dr Coleman

The second notice concerned the application of a section of the Black Local Authorities Act 1983 102 which gave community councilors the power to employ 'their own law enforcement agencies'. The Resource Center reported118 that the regulations differed from those drawn up when the state of emergency was declared in 1960. Some of the powers, such as detention without trial, suppression of 'subversive' organizations and the power to stop and disperse assemblies in an emergency of 1960 were included and.

Both were members of the State Security Council which effectively governed the country through the establishment of 500 local joint management councils (JMCs). In January 1990, the Minister of Justice, Kobie Coetsee, announced the establishment of the Harms Commission of Inquiry to investigate the allegations of Dirk Coetzee, Almond. 126 Hoexter (note 6) During 'the state of emergency declared by the government in the 1980s, one of our darkest periods, the courts proved largely incapable or unwilling to use administrative law to prevent abuse of power.'.

By the end of the partial state of emergency, in March 1986, the number of emergency detentions had risen to four less than 8,000, while the number of detentions under non-emergency security laws had quadrupled by December 1985 to 4,389,133. In a request heard by Justice Goldstone on June 14, 1986, the DPSC obtained the return of some documents because the statements were intended for legal counsel and therefore constituted privileged information. In April 1987, the DPSC issued a statement about the "systematic and apparently coordinated harassment" it had suffered:. raids on its offices in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein, Durban and Kimberley; confiscation of pamphlets and documents; the issuance of a subpoena to one of its members, Audrey Coleman, regarding the publication of details of torture and abuse of children; the detention of two Durban members and four in East London.136.

When these forms of harassment were clearly not enough for the Minister of Law and Order, he used his power to issue additional regulations during the state of emergency. In this case, the courts would probably have said that if the president's intent was to abolish the professional privilege, he had to say so explicitly, and that intent was not to be inferred or implied. The Commissioner even had the power to "identify" the simple act of "calling upon the Government" in writing, orally by means of a telegram, "or by any other means" to release the "said person" from detention as a "subversive."

In the early hours of 31 August 1988, during a third state of emergency (June 1988–December 1988), a bomb exploded in the basement of Khotso House, the headquarters of the SA Council of Churches, the RDSR and the Black Sash. A night watchman was injured, as well as around 30 other people in the vicinity of the six-storey building.142. He was the first member of the apartheid cabinet in those dark years to approach the TRC to obtain amnesty.

The report vividly depicts the full range of the apartheid state's repressive measures, including the extent of its illegal practices in the diagram below.150.

27 The ‘extra-legal’ assassins

Patrick Pearson, a close friend of David's since the early 1970s, maintains that David was not fearless in the sense that he had no fear. It must certainly be true of his contribution to monitoring and publicizing human rights violations, exposing the use of killings as early as August 1984 when he went to Lusaka with Dr. Coleman to report to the United Nations. There is a story David156's mother told me that illustrates determination in the face of danger from a very young age.

When David was a toddler of about three, he sat in the back seat of the car she drove down the dusty dirt road to Luanshya (where he was born). As she turned the corner, the back door of the car opened and David fell out. I told Ms. Floyd that I did not know if any of the other detainees knew, but I did know that the DPSC arranged for parents and families to visit their detainees.

Shortly after entering the queue in the waiting room at John Vorster Square, the outer gate was slammed shut. All who knew David would agree that he would have considered the role of others in the organizations in which he worked to be essential to his contribution. There were many organizations and many professions which played a crucial role in monitoring and publicizing the abuse of state power: journalists, lawyers, doctors, nurses, social workers, students, group members. the opposition, priests, ministers of religion and thousands of ordinary citizens.

Despite his own brave and persistent determination, and that of all others in the DPSC who sought to restore 'the habits of democracy', Dr Coleman paid this tribute to David at the opening of the David Webster Park: . It was their 'practical' involvement in numerous civil, legal, labor, educational, social and economic rights organizations that worked to achieve these values; and it informed the detailed wording of the rights in our bill of rights. Prof Mureinik, with his concern about the role of judges in the protection of our rights, was influential in ensuring political representation for all parties on the DRC.

Section 178, which deals with the JSC, provides that, inter alia, six members of the JSC should be elected by the members of parliament from among themselves. It culminated in the adoption of an interim Constitution, Republic of South Africa Act 200 of 1993, which laid the groundwork for the first democratic elections on 17 April 1994.

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