Chairperson, firstly, let me just say that nobody, not members of my study group and certainly not I - and I am quite sure not the Minister either - will just claim that the Justice department is the best department we have. But equally, what I am prepared to say quite confidently, and I'm sure others who are honest will agree with me, is that the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has improved substantially in the past few years, achieving a nonqualified audit two years in a row.
Secondly, let me just say that if you continue repeating things over and over again, that which you repeat over and over again doesn't suddenly become true one day. During the apartheid era many people on this side of the House suffered decisions by judges and magistrates whose independence was highly questionable, if not nonexistent.
The ANC cannot, therefore, in principle, assault the impartiality exercised by our judicial officers in this era of freedom. So, I want to urge, yet again - those members who haven't read the Bill and those who have but still stand up in this House to assault and undermine the parliamentary processes and the committee's system - to once again read the Bills that we have prepared and study them so that they will understand them once and for all. They must not just read the papers and regurgitate what the Sunday Times and other such media have to say about them. Make up your own minds.
During the Budget Vote debate we heard of officials in the Justice department sacrificing large amounts of their personal time during weekends and after hours to make justice work. Prosecutors, who in their own time are looking for witnesses ...