On the eve of the FW de Klerk Foundation’s 20th anniversary, the Foundation’s Board of Trustees has taken a number of important decisions. These are to ensure that the Foundation continues to play a significant role deep into the future in supporting the Constitution, promoting positive inter-community relations and commemorating FW de Klerk’s legacy.

The Foundation has decided to acquire its own offices, where it will establish an FW de Klerk Documentation Centre.   One of the Centre’s core purposes will be to commemorate South Africa’s historic constitutional transformation process between 1990 and 1996, and the role that South Africans from all political parties played in this process.  The Board believes – together with many others in South Africa and throughout the world – that this was one of South Africa’s greatest achievements.

The FW de Klerk Foundation is once again deeply concerned about the hate speech findings made by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) regarding certain statements made by Mr Malema and other members of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).  These include the Foundation’s initial complaint against Mr Malema in November 2016, in which he stated that “…We are not calling for the slaughtering of white people, at least for now ”. This was, inexplicably, found by the SAHRC not to be hate speech in terms of section 10 of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (the Equality Act). The SAHRC found that none of the other complaints were hate speech in terms of the Equality Act. 

Veteran journalist, Karima Brown, recently mistakenly posted a message on an EFF media WhatsApp group, advising journalists to “keep an eye out” for a “Breakfast with the Elderly” planned for Wednesday, 6 March.  EFF leader, Julius Malema, responded angrily that Brown was not a journalist and implied that she must be “a mole” working for a security agency or for the ANC.  After he had published her telephone number in a Tweet, some of his followers viciously abused Brown – calling her “an Indian whore and b****”, and threatening her with rape and death, and her family with violence.

The attack on Brown follows similar EFF attacks on other journalists, including Ranjeni Munusamy, Max du Preez and News24 editor, Adriaan Basson. 

The Expropriation Bill was published on 21 December 2018, with a timeframe of 60 days for public comment. Its timing – when virtually the entire country was on holiday – and its compressed timeframe for comments, predictably arouse suspicion.

At face value, the Draft Bill seeks to amend the Expropriation Act of 1975, which is in contradiction of section 25 of the Constitution in respect of two key provisions. First, the Expropriation Act makes reference to “public purpose” only, while the Constitution references “public interest” and “public purpose”. Secondly, the Expropriation Act refers to “market value”, while the Constitution refers to “just and equitable” compensation. Market value is but one consideration in the determination of just and equitable compensation.

Everyone cautioned that Finance Minister Tito Titus Mboweni would not have a lot of leeway in presenting his Budget for the coming year in Parliament. He did not flash big numbers around, but he definitely made an impact. He quoted from the Old Testament no less than three times, almost as if he realised that he would need supernatural powers for the job at hand.

As with the President’s State of the Nation, it is not sufficient to look at the numbers and the allocations and the commitments. There are few surprises. If one, however, reads between the lines, a different picture emerges.

On 15 February 2019, the FW de Klerk Foundation made a written submission on the Prevention and Combatting of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill [B9-2018] (the Bill) to the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services. The Bill essentially provides for the offences of hate speech and hate crimes. A person found guilty on a first offence of hate speech in terms of the Bill might be looking at imprisonment of three years, and five years on a subsequent conviction. 

The Foundation is not opposed to the statutory recognition of hate crimes, as there is a clear need to distinguish hate crimes from ordinary crimes so that proper data collection of these specific crimes can take place and it can be properly prosecuted. We are, however, highly concerned about the proposed statutory criminal offence of hate speech and we submitted that the current version – although an improved version of the 2016 version – is highly flawed and unconstitutional.