Special Hearings — Mandela United Football Club Hearings — 1997-11-24

MR VALLY: Mr Chairperson of Mr Cachalia is particularly relevant.  Mr Murphy Morobe did not make his statement in the air from the statement given to us by Mr Cachalia, he is jointly responsible as an official, a senior official of the then United Democratic Front.  More important, for a lot of the relevant period Mr Morobe was not in the country or was in detention.  Mr Cachalia is in a better position to do what we have to in terms of our function. I refer to Section 4 amongst others.  If you look at Section 4 Subsection A, subsection Roman numeral 2, "The functions of the Commission shall be to achieve it's objectives and to that end the Commission shall facilitate and where necessary a co-ordinating inquiry into the nature, causes and extent of gross violations of human rights, including the antecedent's circumstances, factors, contexts and motives which led to such violations."  The underlying theme of the hearings this week has been the activities of the Mandela United Football Club.  The Mandela United Football Club is loosely regarded as having been part, and they can dispute this in the submission but part of the wider  Mass Democratic Movement.  Surely the leadership of that particular movement should explain and this is coming from investigators, it's not a finding yet but should explain the kinds of actions that took place under the auspices or within the ambit of the activities of the Football Club and the youths surrounding the Football Club within the broader framework of the Mass Democratic Movement which I would submit the Mandela Football Club members who regarded themselves as being part of.
 So I think Mr Cachalia's evidence is particularly relevant. The section that Mr Semenya is referring to are the pervious four hearings that we have determined for this particular hearing.  The Section reads as follows.  "The panel conducting the hearing may in it's sole discretion", and I'll go straight to 1.2,  "make a ruling on any relevant matter during the course of the hearing on the relevant matter".  This matter is particularly relevant if you look at Mr Cachalia's submission, he talks about the background to the events.  He talks about his role in the United Democratic Front. He talks about the possible causes as to why such, and I use this word guardedly but also consciously, such an anomaly, and the reason I use this word anomaly, and that's a euphemism, such as the United Football Club could have arisen. It's very important for us to determine why it's a euphemism is that we have a series of cases where people who belong to this football club have ether been charged of very serious crimes or have been convicted of very serious crimes.

CHAIRPERSON: I think that is enough.  I see on page 3 of his, I hadn't looked at this, page 3 of his statement, that in fact personally consulted with and represented Paul Verryn, which means that he was very intimately involved, aside from his involvement with the UDF and therefore I rule that this is relevant.

MR SEMENYA: May I Chairperson, I respect the ruling.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes,

MR SEMENYA: May I find out if the witness then when he's being led, would be directed to deal with matters, not his opinions but matters pertinent to the issues and about which he factually knows?

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, you will have the right to challenge whatever he puts across.  Let him speak as we have heard everybody speak.  People have given opinions and we haven't had objections.  You will have the right of cross-examination, of calling in question whatever is being said.  Thank you.