Mr Chairperson, most of what had to be said about this Bill has been said and, like Paganini, I do not repeat. All that there is for me to do is to raise a couple of concerns which are specifically relevant from our perspective.
Before I do so, I feel compelled to step back and think about the fact that this Bill is about structures and, irrespective of how we feel the structures have been structured, they are nothing but structures. The rule of law does not depend exclusively on structures. It depends on the people who work in those structures and the culture of the people who work in those structures. The culture of the people is something that we are equally responsible for forging.
A member of this House crossed the floor earlier and he gave me these napkins, which I will preserve and return to him in 30 years. He gave them to me to wipe away my tears for the failure of the High Court of Appeal to find in favour of the opposition parties in the case against the Speaker. That was a moral triumph, lost on a technicality, which accounts for the fact that no costs were awarded.
We need to move away from the culture that might is right, and move to the culture that right is might. We need to stop and enjoy the privileges of power to understand, as has happened to this member, that power comes and power goes, and the fortunes of power change. Those who were once in power go into the opposition, and those who were in the opposition go back into power, and may go back into the opposition! [Interjections.]
The most important structure within the consolidation of the rule of law is the political body. Unless we relinquish the worship we have for the rule of man and we embrace the rule of law, to the point where we fairly and sincerely accept that no one is above the law ... [Interjections.] The rule of women? [Laughter.] Well, Mr Jeffery, let the rule be as you wish, but until we have achieved that, all that can be done in the structures of the court system will not be achieved. Hon Jeffery, I can hear that you feel much better. We were very concerned about your being unwell and we were hoping that you had nothing trivial, but it seems that that is not the case! [Laughter.]
We had reservations in regard to the Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Bill, and we opposed it yesterday. Those reservations carry over to this Bill. I think it is a mistake to have made the Chief Justice, who should be judging in an ivory tower, look at long-term constitutional policies. We think it is a mistake to have made him the person who needs to deal with the daily administration of justice, and with the selection, as the hon Smuts said, of people as far down the ladder as registrar. That undermines constitutional adjudication. It draws those who should be the final wise referees of the dynamic of the Constitution into the terrain of the daily conflicts, daily administration and daily interpersonal exchanges. I think that weakens, rather than strengthens, the overall system of constitutional adjudication and the strength of the Constitution.
Be that as it may, this Parliament, against our best judgment, passed the constitutional amendment yesterday, and it therefore becomes necessary for that to be implemented by this Bill, and that accounts for the fact that we cannot possibly object to it.
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, as this is a day on which we have not been able to oppose anything, we will support the Bill. Thank you.