Beliefs are a personal choice and are acceptable in a free society, no matter how stupid they may or may not be. But when they’re exploited for personal gain, like in (soon-to-be chief justice) Mogoeng Mogoeng’s case, it’s going to be tough to avoid mockery.
Chief Justice nominee Mogoeng Mogoeng told the Judicial Services Commission on Sunday that God wants him to be appointed to the position.
“When a position comes like this one, I wouldn’t take it unless I had prayed and satisfied myself that God wants me to take it. [News24]
Rubbish.
He is taking it because of the power, enticing payslip, and new set of golf clubs.
The worrying thing is that he really believes God actually left everything else to come and have a chat with him and him alone.
What is really worrying is that people still believe in… wait..
People are entitled to their beliefs and neither you or I (or they) have the unique knowledge to know the ultimate truth. I do, however, not believe for one second that God or Beelzebub went to have a chat to Momo.
I believe (it sounds like Tom Jones singing I believe that for every drop of rain tra la la) that it was either his ego or he’s schizophrenic … and in both cases, the law is in for a rocky ride.
The sad reality is he is no different from Malema. He plays the same tune but with a different card.
> People are entitled to their beliefs and neither you or I (or they) have the unique knowledge to know the ultimate truth.
Yes, but we can apply scientific logic to arrive at very accurate possibilities. Similarly, many people believe in fairies, and neither you nor I have the “unique knowledge to the ultimate truth”.
Point is, the chief justice should not be overlapping his constitutional role with his personal convictions. They’re not compatible, especially in his church situation, where homophobia is rampant.
Yip – so now his Church (in a country with a multitude of religions) becomes the Law as represented by the Court (which should not be political and separate from the ruling party but isn’t) and so we build on this Banana Republic in the making ..
Well, as long as he makes rulings based on the constitution, we should be fine.
Why should he? He’s walked on the wild side of the constitution until now …. I spent two days last weekend listening to the man’s interview … he made my skin crawl.
> Why should he?
Because he has to.
We’ve had a constitution since ’94 – it hasn’ taken it into account before and I don’t believe he will. He will have a chat to God first and where God and our Constitution disagrees, God will win. Exactly as it has before with rape and sexual assault and let’s not even start on his homophobic views and his stance on the death sentence …
Yes, and then the government will deliberately sabotage the economy, and then the country will blow up and everyone will die of AIDS. Right?
Right.
I doubt the government will WANT to sabotage the economy – of course not but the government will now (amongst other things) be able to push through substantially more undesired legislation (like the Info Bill) than before. We don’t have an independent judiciary anymore … I’m appalled. He’s an inexperienced, extremely poorly educated judge (but I guess Zuma feels more comfortable with him) who hasn’t published anything (unless you count a judgement as a publication) to date and you should read some of those ….
You make a chief justice’s job sound so simple, lest we forget that he is surrounded by many many critical and judgemental eyes locally and internationally.
Be careful of those pre-1994 “swart gevaar” predictions…
Oh come come …. ‘swaart gevaar’ is hardly indicated here but I’ve thrown away my rainbow tinted glasses a long time ago. The man isn’t suitable – there were plenty of other infinitely more suitable judges who are sufficiently educated to do the job.
It has nothing to do with colour, it has everything to do with capability.
The many many brilliant pairs critical eyes were outvoted – not by a lot, but they were outvoted.
I’m just saying, don’t jump onto the doom-and-gloom bandwagon.
That’s a cartoonist’s job. :-)
Hmmm.. I want tinted rainbow shades.. would go well with my vellies and khaki jean pants.