Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

MR MCNALLY: : I've never denied that the relationship was stormy. It was extremely stormy, so much so that I had to invite the ITB and ITU on the radio to come to lunch with me so that we could settle our differences and that was agreed to by the ITB. They came to a meeting with me at my office, and one could almost feel the hostility that they had towards me, and I chaired that meeting and as the meeting proceeded I could feel the hostility melting away and after the meeting we issued a press statement to say that we had resolved our difficulties. There had been stormy difficulties, to the extent that they had said that they could only communicate with me in future through a mediator which I said was ridiculous, and when I called for this meeting and we had it, and we resolved our differences and I must tell you that during the course of the Malan trial my perception is that we the Prosecution worked as a closely knit team with the ITB to whom I gave regular briefings of what was happening in Court, and with the ITU and the Civilian Research component of whom Melanie Lou was a member. We really appreciated the research and input that we got from them. It was something new for us as prosecutors. We don't normally have a research unit so we got a lot of help from them, and my opinion is that there was a great deal of goodwill between me as the Chief Prosecutor and the ITU and the ITB during the Malan trial.
 What went wrong was that first of all, Malan and Company were found not guilty, that was a negative factor. And secondly afterwards certain dockets which didn't justify prosecution were submitted to me for prosecution. I declined to prosecute, and every time I declined to prosecute Howard Varney went to the newspapers with a press statement condemning my decision. Now I've never criticised him, but he keeps criticising me, it's been a one way traffic. I haven't sought confrontation with him, I've sought reconciliation and we had reconciliation during the Malan trial, but unfortunately the relationship between him and me is not good at the moment, it is not my wish that it should not be good, I'd be delighted to repair the relationship again, but I don't see any sign that he wants to.

MR VALLY: : Thank you Mr McNally.

CHAIRPERSON: Questions ?

MR POTGIETER: : Mr McNally, a lot of these submissions that were made to us reflects a negative public perception towards the prosecuting authority, in fact there appears to be a lack of confidence in the ability of the prosecuting authority to serve the interests of the new democracy. There is a view that this results from the fact that the prosecuting authority has been inherited virtually intact from the apartheid era. Your conduct as Attorneys General in opposing what is regarded widely as a positive move to centralise, introduce some central authority within the realm of the prosecution hasn't helped it appears to dispel that public perception.  We noted that you referred to restructuring efforts in your particular office, the fact that you are working on representivity in respect of the racial composition of your staff complement. You have referred to the of course the fait-acompli now of National Director of Public Prosecutions, but how does one go about dispelling that perception, right or wrong, it seems to be a fact, how do we get rid of that, because obviously it's a negative thing, it's something that we need to address. Have you got any views on that?

MR MCNALLY: : Maybe you can give me a PR person to help me, I do my best, but Attorneys General has never been trained in PR, but I find that whenever I get an opportunity to address the Portfolio Committee, that's in Pretoria, or the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security in KwaZulu Natal as I did recently, this develops a greater understanding of my role in whole system of justice and I believe that that helps to dispel the perceptions to which you refer. But there definitely are perceptions, and these are fueled by old things, like the Nofomela matter that was raised with me today by Mr Vally, the Harms Commission. These things cannot again and again and again ad nauseam. Nobody takes any notice of what I say. The facts suggest that I've acted honourably and that I tried my best at the Harms Commission to get to the truth, that's the fact. The perception created by questions like those from Mr Vally, creates a perception that maybe I wasn't doing my job correctly, which is an incorrect perception. I wanted to get to the bottom of those death squads. I worked hard with Advocate Roberts and the Judge to get to the bottom of those things, but the times were different to the times that we've got today. We were misled and we were lied to, and the fact is we didn't get to the truth, but that's wasn't for want of trying. So maybe my appearance today will help in clearing some misperceptions.
 And I would also like to say to you that the perceptions that you referred to, are perceptions that crop up in the media from time to time and perceptions amongst certain NGO's, but the perception of a large portion of the population of KwaZulu Natal is that I'm actually doing quite a good job, believe that or not! I get invited to speak at functions and my speeches are very well received. I've been invited to join Business Against Crime and I've joined both the Provincial body and the Pietermaritzburg body, I get greeted by people in the street, black, white, Indian, you name it, who want to shake my hand and just tell me they've seem me on the television, and it's great. So it's a one-sided perception, but it's there, I know it's there and you can help to dispel it.

YASMINE SOOKA: : Mr McNally, just one more question, or two, I think Ilan Lax wants to ask one as well. This was quite a different approach, having a body like the ITU assist with your office
and you spoke about the fact that you actually enjoyed someone else doing the research, and from the reports one gets, it's obviously a very difficult - the issue of prosecuting in our country is very difficult given the numbers, the fact that you don't have time to prepare probably and that you don't have at your beck and call some of the resources that advocates with well stocked libraries, etc., have. I know that the relationship between you and the ITU in fact floundered, but in terms of the experiment that was tried then, what is your opinion on whether that works, whether that's possible in the future? Just some kind of comment from you, given the fact that Ms Rayner also talked about a team-based approach bringing different expertise's together.