More money than sense this Christmas

From Afriforum and the DA to Santam and the Health Justice Initiative, we are being confronted with the ugly hypocritical face of capitalism this ‘Christmas’.

Many of these organisations have seemingly infinite war chests that enable them to pick their battles and pay lawyers huge sums of money to fight them in the courts at the drop of a hat. The battles that are being fought in our courts reveal a major flaw in the South African judicial system – it is only accessible to the rich, and you can see it in the types of battles that are being picked.

Just take a look at a few of the cases the legal fraternity are earning a pretty penny from this Christmas whilst millions of South Africans starve, literally.

• Santam has been fighting to not have to pay COVID-19 business interruption claims. How honourable is that?

• Afriforum and the DA are fighting to open beaches in COVID-19 hot spots because their members' summer holidays are being ruined or their business's profits are being affected. These are the same people who wouldn’t allow non-whites on beaches for decades?

• The DA is taking the Minister of Police to court for implementing government COVID-19 regulations at a film shoot in Cape Town.

• The Public Protector is fighting tooth and nail for the impeachment of the president.

• The Health Justice Initiative is fighting for access to the government’s COVID-19 vaccination roll-out plan.

Where are the people who are fighting to force the government to provide food relief to those who are starving? Where are the people fighting for the government to provide adequate human settlement solutions? Where are the people fighting for those who have been unfairly dismissed during COVID-19? Where are the people fighting for basic human rights to water?

The people who believe that hunger, housing, and access to basic services are more important than whether beaches open, cigarettes are available, or a movie shoot continues or not, are unable to fight for these real human rights issues in court, because they can’t. They cannot afford to. The judiciary is completely inaccessible to the working class and the poor.

This is a major flaw of a capitalistic system that puts profit before people no matter how democratic the country is.

LAND Party calls on the government to legislate that all of these lawyers who are earning at least R1000 an hour have to spend 50% of their time on pro bono work on human rights issues for those who don’t have white monopoly capital behind them.

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