Special Hearings — State Security Council Hearings — UNKNOWN

MR MEYER: It all depends again on what - one will have to go into each 
case and determine what consequences the person who pronounced might have 
foreseen or not.  Even looking at some of the documentation that you have 
made available to me there are obviously different interpretations that one can 
reduce from every single such pronouncement, if I am right.

MR GOOSEN: But if the interpretation is that we have a general 
authorisation for acceptance of, I mean you indicated, you say that individuals 
under the impression that they were authorised by implication, now you accept 
that that could happen.  What I am asking you is whether in the circumstances 
in which there was an impression that they were authorised by implication 
whether that would have been reasonable or not?  If it is reasonable does it 
not follow that at a political level responsibility should attach?

MR MEYER: I guess the question is actually what one could have adduced 
from the person who made the pronouncement, what he could have foreseen in 
terms of consequences, of the consequences or not.  And again I think one has 
to go back to every single case.  I don't think - well let me put it emphatically, 
I am saying to you that from my knowledge that could not have been the 
conclusion reached in terms of the activities of the organs of State that I was 
involved in.

MR GOOSEN: We are not talking here about specific authorisation, we are 
talking about the adoption of a set of policy guidelines which you 
acknowledge would be interpreted by the people who acted.  So the question 
is, you acknowledge that they were interpreted, the question is in those 
circumstances would it be reasonable, in principle is it reasonable for a person 
to have interpreted those policies to authorise the unlawful killing of a 
political opponent?  And we get back to that point.  
 If it is not reasonable,  under no circumstances could it be reasonable, 
yes, then political responsibility would only have to attach on an individual 
who made a particular pronouncement, but if in principle, if in principle it is 
possible for the interpretation to be reasonable, State policy, then at that level 
political responsibility must attach, surely?

MR MEYER: In the way that you have described it my answer would be no.

MR GOOSEN: Now in circumstances where to the Minister of Defence would 
make a statement to the effect that every effort should be made, terrorists 
should be wiped out, those who come across the border carrying their limpet 
mines and so on that they must be tracked down, whether they are inside the 
country or outside of the country they must be annihilated, them and their 
supporters or their "meelopers", now in those circumstances would you not 
agree that that generates a climate in which susceptible to reasonable 
interpretation, that unlawful actions are authorised? I am not asking that you 
should condemn the Minster of Defence, he made such a statement, we can get 
the full quote for you - that's a summary of it.  I am not asking you to 
condemn a former Minister of Defence, I am asking you in principle, in terms 
of the climate created.

MR MEYER: But I guess you are now back with the individual again.  You 
are back with the individual now, or the individual case or the line functionary 
now again.  The previous question was about a general atmosphere as far as 
what was created by the State as such.  I mean you are now referring to an 
individual Minister and my answer in that regard would be to go to the facts 
of each and every single case because that is what I am suggesting in bullet 
two.  I don't think it would be correct to assume that -  No let me frame it 
differently.  I am not trying to address the individual cases in my submission 
here, because to my mind that will have to be analysed on the merit of each 
case.

MR GOOSEN: So there is in your schema no scope for collective 
responsibility other than on the basis of omissions, is that correct?

MR MEYER: My reference there is I think quite clear, namely that under 
bullet two I am saying that there has to be an acceptability, to my mind, on the 
side of the previous government of a responsibility, a moral responsibility 
which led to the circumstances.

MR GOOSEN: But Mr Meyer that's precisely the point, what is the basis of 
that moral and political responsibility is it founded upon an acceptance that 
State policies were susceptible to a reasonable interpretation that unlawful 
actions were authorised or not?

MR MEYER: Is the question not really what moral responsibility means?

MR GOOSEN: Let's look at - let's leave moral responsibility, let's look at 
political responsibility because you refer to political responsibility, what is 
the basis of that political responsibility?

MR MEYER: I am not sure whether I have all the information available on 
that or all the knowledge available on that, but it seems to me in the context 
what it's being used here for is to say well if this would have happened to a 
person in the political position whilst he or she is still in office that could 
have resulted in the resignation or the sacking of that particular person as a 
political act, and I think that is the kind of meaning that could be attached to 
it.

MR GOOSEN: And would that be confined then purely to line functional 
departments rather than any sense of collective responsibility?

MR MEYER: I think what is being suggested here and it is something that I 
understand it also came up otherwise before the Commission is the question of 
a consideration of a collective moral responsibility because none of those 
members are still in Cabinet at this stage, so politically they could not be 
sacked in any event or resign, but it's accepting a moral responsibility in 
terms of what the Cabinet then as it were had to take responsibility for.

MR GOOSEN: So the question as to whether State policy directives were 
susceptible to reasonable misinterpretation that they authorised unlawful 
actions that would not feature at all in the scheme of political responsibility 
which we'll have to attach in respect of those individual matters?  You've 
indicated that, when I asked you what the basis for the acceptance of political 
responsibility was you'd say well if the line function or the department, the 
person who made the statement, if that person could, on the basis of those 
statements be dismissed, politically dismissed for being in breach of the 
policy in regard to that matter, then and only then would political 
responsibility attach.  That is as I understand your answer to the question.  Is 
that correct or not?

MR MEYER: I think there must be some differentiation between political and 
other forms of responsibility. I am trying to define what political 
responsibility in this regard would mean.  Obviously it is different from 
criminal responsibility or accountability.  But I am trying to put forward again 
a framework in that regard.  I can't give judgement on specific cases.

CHAIRPERSON: Ilan I thought you....