LUCKY MATHEBULA

Few criminal cases in post-apartheid South Africa have tested the resilience of the country’s judicial system as searchingly as the sentencing of Julius Malema.

Coming after other politically charged trials that divided public opinion along racial and ideological lines, the Malema matter has become less about the legality of a single act and more about the capacity of the rule of law to withstand political pressure, emotional mobilisation and mistrust of institutions.

In this sense, Malema himself was never the only one on trial. Through him, South Africa’s political leadership, and society’s commitment to constitutionalism, stood implicitly in the dock.

Whenever prominent political figures appear before the courts, the verdict rarely ends the matter. In cases where race, power and historical injustice are layered onto criminal proceedings, the court of public opinion almost instinctively invokes bias as its interpretive lens. Guilty verdicts are quickly explained as products of prejudice rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt.

This reflex, however understandable given the country’s past, obscures a more uncomfortable truth: South Africa’s prisons are filled with individuals of no political stature who have faced similar charges, argued under similar legal principles and now serve time in anonymity. Equality before the law has meaning only if it applies beyond the exceptional case.

For parliamentarians — and especially for prominent figures such as Malema — accountability is an inseparable companion of authority.

In her judgment, the Malema magistrate emphasised the elevated expectations society rightly places on those who voluntarily assume public office and swear an oath to uphold the constitution. That oath is not ceremonial. It is a binding moral and legal undertaking to “obey, respect and uphold” the law of the republic. Once unlawfulness has been established, the obligations arising from that oath supersede political explanations, popular sympathy or claims of selective prosecution. For parliamentarians — and especially for prominent figures such as Malema — accountability is an inseparable companion of authority.

Much of the public controversy surrounding the case has focused less on the facts than on the perceived beliefs or affiliations of the presiding magistrate. Even if it were true that she belonged to a civil society organisation with explicit ideological objectives, the critical question remains: what in the legal reasoning or factual findings would change had another jurist presided?

Courts are not arenas for regulating beliefs, but institutions tasked with adjudicating conduct. A society that allows subjective assumptions about personal affiliation to eclipse objective findings of unlawfulness erodes its own capacity to distinguish between justice and preference. Beliefs, after all, can become so deeply ingrained that they resist correction even when confronted with facts.

The case also illustrates a recurring misunderstanding of criminal liability. Malema’s defence could not establish that he did not possess a firearm at the time of the shooting. Rather, it showed only that the firearm did not belong to him. The state, by contrast, proved beyond reasonable doubt that he acted unlawfully on the day in question. Criminal responsibility is individual, not transferable. The fact that another accused may have been acquitted does not automatically taint the conviction of the remaining accused.

The persistent invocation of “judicial bias” also carries broader dangers. In South Africa, such assertions often function as coded claims about racial injustice, priming audiences to mistrust outcomes before engaging with evidence. If every lawful conviction of a politically powerful figure is reflexively treated as suspect, society risks losing its ability to identify crime for what it is.

Worse still, those who cry foul the loudest may be transformed into heroes, while lawful institutions are portrayed as villains. The predictable result is not justice but creeping anarchy, where popular feeling substitutes for adjudication. The purpose of courts is precisely to filter popular desire in favour of the common good.

None of this negates the presumption of innocence or the right to appeal. Until overturned by a higher court, however, a duly constituted judgment is authoritative.

History offers sobering lessons about societies that collapse their legal values under the weight of personality politics. Where followers confer near-omnipotence on leaders, reputational cascades inevitably follow, sweeping communities into complicity with narratives that excuse or minimise unlawful conduct.

The rule of law is most severely tested not in easy cases, but in those that challenge loyalty and expose fault lines. Inconvenient as it may be, the current five-year sentence imposed on Malema stands as a reminder that constitutionalism requires discipline, restraint and consistency.

If South Africa is to preserve the integrity of its judicial system, it must resist the temptation to collapse legal reasoning into political allegiance. The alternative is not justice with a human face, but law subordinated to noise. Until the appeal is heard, the jury is out on South Africa’s commitment to advance to the ultimate limits of the rule of law.