Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: Yes. Thank you Madam Chair. May I first of all say I never suggested that it was a wonderful system. I said to you that we operated within certain parameters. May I make the point quite clear, the responsibility to investigate and prevent crime was not that of the Attorney General, that was the responsibility given by law to the police. We landed up with the end product of the police investigation. That end product either indicated there was a case which a person had to answer or not, that end product indicated that something went wrong or something did not. Obviously things went wrong if we see what the type of evidence is that comes to the fore, obviously things went wrong otherwise Van As wouldn't have been prosecuted, but if the information and the evidence is not submitted to the Attorney General indicating further wrongdoings of a serious nature there is very little that he can do about it. He is bound by a system which has a division of functions. Now I am not say that everything went right with us, we also made our mistakes. I am just saying that when you judge the Attorneys General's contribution to the legal system, you must appreciate it that we operated within certain restrictions.
 Outside agencies provided him with information. That information was either wrong or right. If it's an affidavit, he's got to accept the affidavit. Years later it turns out the affidavit was a lie, people come and ask for amnesty, we've taken a decision based on an acceptance of the correctness of the affidavit well then obviously we were lied to. It's a fact, and because we were lied to we took a wrong decision. As far as People's Courts are concerned, obviously that was a substitute and the demonstration that the existing courts didn't function efficiently. That's common knowledge. I readily admit that the existing courts did not function efficiently, and I think if I have to be sorry for anything I'm specifically sorry to the general public that I wasn't able to give them a better service. That I think I can say I am sorry general public.
 But People's Courts were the response of the Revolutionary War, it was a strategy, it fell outside my domain. I couldn't prevent people who are dissatisfied with the system from establishing their own courts, and by no means do I say that everything was like Alice in Wonderland in the Attorney General's Office, I've never suggested that, but some thing's you can control and other things you cannot control, and there were many things as I've tried to indicate to you, that we were fed with which we accepted at face value, which perhaps we could have been more critical but in security cases we lent over backwards to make sure that the facts presented to us were in fact correct. So, we know what's happened. Everybody knows what happened and everybody now only starts to realise what the extent of the misleading was what went on. That is so.

MR LAX: Thank you Chairperson. Mr Von Lieres in the period between 1960 and 1994, at least 87 political detainees died in mysteriouss circumstances in custody. In the vast majority of those cases inquests found the police not to be responsible. You were the prosecuting authority. Did it not struck you as odd that over this period of time so many people were dying in detention, in mysterious circumstances, where the police were consistently saying that it had nothing to do with us, and you were reviewing those dockets, and you were reviewing those inquests, why didn't you do something more about it? Why didn't you institute your own investigations? When I say you I mean collectively, I'm not saying you personally., please don't get me wrong about ...(intrvention)

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: : Well, no-no. Madam Chair, as you know many of these deaths in detention formal inquests were ordered. I think two of the better known one's are the Timol case and the Aggett case, where formal inquests were ordered. Now there people had to testify under oath the ability to cross-examine existetd yet the magistrate made certain findings. Now I invite you today to go and read up those records, and ask whether those findings on the facts before that presiding officer was justified or not. If people now come to the fore and say, no but I actually deliberately murdered this detainee, that is not what was the evidence when the enquiry was made, and when the enquiry was held and the trouble we have now, is that we now actually get evidence that shows that people lied under oath to courts, to enquiries and the result of that obviously was the miscarriages which you've indicated by alluding to the 87 deaths in detention.
 We were very aware of the fact that if a government fails to act within the law there is no reason whatsoever why the citizen should have more respect for the government, than for its opposition, and in fact Madam Chair, many ..(recording stops)
...(tape recommences on side B)
....speaking for themselves. 
 (d) According to the current feeling of our membership the aforesaid colleagues whose associations have been used by the apartheid regime, are still hoping to have the second chance by requesting the present government to be at their side so that, due to their illegitimacy acquired majority of their numbers they can entrench their position as the perpetual guardians and custodians of the organised legal profession to the detriment of the black and deprived minorities, despite the fact that they have benefitted unduly from the apartheid criminal legislation which made them the super human beings in the country where the indigenous people were looked down upon as non citizens.
 (e). The Law Societies are still discriminating against their black members, e.g. the Transvaal Law Society's annual presidential report for 1996/97. There is a list of the attorneys who passed away during 1996/97 Financial Year, in which only the names of white practitioners have been listed and that of the late Dr GM Dejay of Johannesburg has been omitted without explanation, when his death is still fresh in our minds since he only died in or about April 1997, and the sad loss that its members could not even attend .... (recording breaks)
 This is just one example to show that an organisation of the members of the .......at the present moment ..... Now ladies and gentlemen this is one a very unexplainable omission of the of the law side of the Transvaal . We all know Dr Dejay, the founder member of the BLA, the Director of the BLA, ..... and Dr Dejay was the person .... of Mandela ... He's the one ...(inaudible). He was my mentor and therefore I suffered numerous ___ of course as to why the Law _. Of Transvaal omitted to take necessary steps __. It's a wonder, I just hope ___..
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