Mr Speaker, there is another reason why the finalisation may, in this case, take longer than any of us would want, apart from those that the President has very properly invoked. The process may take longer and it can't, in your words, sir, be jumped. I agree with you.
But that reason is one on which I really would like to hear the President's views. Now, given the hon President's assurances that his recent controversial remarks on the Constitutional Court's powers of judicial review did not mean anything or didn't mean what they appeared to say, does he therefore accept that his decisions on these pardon applications will be capable of being subjected to judicial review?
I ask this specifically because the hon President, together with the hon Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, in the very Constitutional Court case to which he has just referred: Albut, challenged - you challenged, sir - the contention that the presidential pardon power is administrative action and therefore reviewable. I did accuse you at the time of behaving like Henry VIII in this respect, but in other respects also, except that I complimented you for your civilization in those other respects, as against the English King.
This addresses the point of where we all derive our powers from. The fact is that the hon President cannot claim the power of pardon from ancient royal prerogative. The Constitutional Court has said that regardless of the historical origins of the concept, the President derives this power not from antiquity but from the Constitution itself - it is that Constitution that proclaims its own supremacy. Should the exercise of the power of pardon in any particular instance, whether it is argued to be administrative or executive action, be such as to undermine any provision of the Constitution, that conduct would be reviewable. Do you agree, sir, that your impending decisions on these pardons - and they are difficult decisions - will be capable of being subjected to judicial review?