Two reports show the government is failing on many fronts to safeguard the rights of ordinary people, writes Janet Smith.

President Jacob Zuma not only had to face a severe lashing in front of the world this week for failing to uphold the law. He also had to look another, more profound truth in the face when the UN Human Rights Committee released a largely damning report on South Africa.

We’re not doing particularly well – even if, on the face of it, our laws and our Constitution protect us.

The UN’s observations show our many powerful, pro-freedom policies on paper mean little if these are not implemented. It has sought to show how implementation has let us down.

Officially adopting some positives but mostly significant concerns about the country whose people were once dubbed the “rainbow nation”, the committee, in particular, found the South African government wanting in many respects.

These included police abuse, torture, attacks on human rights and other activists, its responses to xenophobia, a failure to conclude liability in the Marikana massacre, and a troubling lack of oversight in terms of how Big Brother is allowed to watch us.

Those are major issues, and they reach into the very recesses of how the state, under Zuma, presents itself as benign and compassionate, but which is often trading in smoke and mirrors.

For instance, the government’s care for our privacy is under severe threat in the absence of an inspector-general of intelligence. The job had been vacant for years, and when the ANC insisted its candidate, Cecil Burgess, be appointed, it seemed the office’s role was in danger of being undermined. The ANC withdrew Burgess’s name last month.

The UN Human Rights Committee’s report also condemns the government for not yet having identified those who fired at the miners in the Marikana massacre and ensuring they are prosecuted.

This may have been greeted with a small sigh of relief from the many organisations, human rights lawyers and community activists who have been virtually ignored by the government around their concerns about the commission of inquiry into the massacre.

The UN report damned “the slow pace of the investigation… including with respect to the criminal responsibility of members of the SAPS and the potential liability of the Lonmin mining company”.

Zuma’s administration may be somewhat distracted by the blow handed to it by the Constitutional Court on Thursday in relation to Nkandla, but it would do well to concentrate on what the UN Committee has found.

Not only does South Africa – as a signatory to at least five key UN protocols – have to do some serious soul-searching, it must also consider that criticism of the country is widespread and growing.

Amnesty International’s report on South Africa, also released last month, presented just as dark a picture.

Amnesty and the UN both, for instance, raised the disturbing matter of how government handled the Omar al-Bashir matter. Fortunately, the government’s reticence about taking responsibility was deftly dismissed by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which effectively said it had erred and broken its own laws by allowing the Sudanese leader – under warrant of arrest by the International Criminal Court – to leave our borders.

On balance, the picture the global bodies paint is one of a country where human rights are abused daily, and where excellent laws are often flouted by officials whose commitment to democratic principles is ambivalent, if not lacking.

Serious attacks on activists have unsettled Amnesty and the UN, not to mention the nation.

It is worth remarking that the UN Human Rights Committee’s report comes at a time when human rights lawyers say they are having difficulty in ensuring the murder last week of anti-mining activist Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Radebe is properly investigated.

Radebe was shot dead by men said to have been masquerading as police in Xolobeni, in the Eastern Cape. He had been in danger for some time.

This week, too, activists in the #FeesMustFall and #OutsourcingMustFall movements were stunned when police told them there would be a 48-hour interval before they would embark on a “missing person” search for activist Vusi Mahlangu.

He disappeared in Mthatha after sending an SMS saying he had been kidnapped and interrogated, and was injured. At the time of going to press, Mahlangu had not yet been found.

Meanwhile, at the besieged Glebelands Hostel in Umlazi, Durban, activists have been killed and there has been a reign of terror since hostel dwellers proposed a vote of no-confidence in the ANC branch executive committee and asked their ward councillor to stand down.

Yet the violence and fear that prevail at the Glebelands Hostel rarely makes the news, allowing the appalling conditions for residents to continue.

Broadly, the UN Human Rights Committee’s report describes harassment, excessive use of force and violent attacks on ordinary citizens by people in a position of authority.

This is in a country that is not only a signatory to some of the UN’s most binding protocols, but which has a Constitution that ensures freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.

A team of 18 international independent experts did the research for the Human Rights Committee, asking specific questions of government, and receiving reports from state institutions, NGOs and activist organisations.

We are not alone in being reviewed. Country reports on Namibia, Sweden, New Zealand, Slovenia, Costa Rica and Rwanda will also be handed down over the next few weeks.

There were positive aspects, the UN committee noted. Although, as citizens, we have come to rely on the judiciary to change our circumstances for the better, it was the legislature that was praised for taking some key institutional steps.

These included the 2013 Prevention and Combating of Torture of Persons Act, which criminalises torture; the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Act, which became operational under a year ago; the adoption of a number of reforms to combat violence against women; and, the establishment five years ago of the national task team to counter discrimination and violence against the LGBTI community.

It also remarked on how the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1996 had helped to decrease significantly the incidence of maternal mortality.

But the stings in the tail were painful.

Has the South African government even properly paid attention to all its responsibilities under the protocols it has signed?

It doesn’t appear it has.

Hence, “the committee notes the apparent inconsistency (with) the text of the Constitution, which provides that a self-executing provision of an international agreement approved by Parliament is considered to be part of domestic law”.

This was no light slap on the wrist. Citing budget limitations, a lack of institutional independence among government departments, and limited mandates and powers, the report was clear.

The government has four years to examine itself, and straighten out its responsibilities on human rights.

The next report is due in 2020.

* Janet Smith is executive editor of The Star.

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