The slings and arrows of Advocate Malesela Teffo’s outrageous fortunes.
Now that he has withdrawn from the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, will the promise of justice for the Meyiwa family be kept?
The statements and conduct of Advocate Malesela Teffo in the Senzo Meyiwa trial have become a matter of major public controversy, and a severe stress test of the South African criminal justice system.
Until he announced his withdrawal on 12 July, Advocate Teffo was representing four of the accused who stand charged of conspiring to murder Senzo Meyiwa in October 2014, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, Bongani Ntanzi, Mthobisi Ncube and Mthokoziseni Maphisa. The fifth, Fisokuhle Ntuli, is represented by Advocate Zandile Mshololo.
When I became involved with Advocate Teffo’s quest for justice eight months ago, he was already in trouble and needed my help. That’s what social workers do. I was not expecting my support to be on public display, but circumstances conspired to pitch me into public focus as well. I went with the flow.
The Thought Leader articles that I have written for the Mail and Guardian, and the interviews with him and his other clients that I have hosted on my YouTube channel, as well as media reports from various outlets, have now indelibly placed me alongside him in the public eye.
I was willing to be there for him because, besides Advocate Teffo having a wife and young family of three to support — who were very disturbed by the retaliation he was suffering- , we share a quest for justice for victims of crime, especially for the families of those whose loved ones had been killed. They have to bear the additional burden of a criminal justice system that fails to bring closure for them. The still unprosecuted death of my friend Bazooka Rhadebe, (the leader of the Amadiba Crisis Committee who was gunned down six years ago, allegedly for his opposition to the Xolobeni Mining rights award) and the eight year delay in the prosecution of those responsible for the death of Senzo Meyiwa, gave us common cause. Dan’s courageous decision to take on the entire system to ensure justice was done for the family of Senzo Meyiwa offered me hope that a successful and just verdict in that case could be the turnaround in the criminal justice system that South Africa desperately needs.
Moreover, we both take inspiration from the witness and sermons of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr.
Although the police minister Bheki Cele may doubt it, my commentary on the saga has been carefully nuanced to generate light rather than heat. Or to echo King, to be “tough minded and tender hearted”. That means to be hard on the problem, and gentle on the people (see this playlist on my YouTube Channel which elaborates on this construct).
From ‘O shit’ to ‘Holy shit’
From the start I tried to moderate Advocate Teffo’s tendency to be hard on the people and urged him to not resort to wild and unsubstantiated claims that defame and denigrate anyone.
While he did walk back a bit on his allegations implicating President Ramaphosa in a conspiracy to have him ejected from the case, when I advised him to retract and apologise for the accusation he made about Presiding Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela consulting a sangoma to bewitch him, he refused.
I was disappointed, but not surprised. By then I had realised that he was tending to rationalize rather than reason, but wasn’t open to my counsel.
As irrational as it may seem to others, in terms of his world view or what sociologist of religion Peter Berger terms a “plausibility structure”, this belief helps him keep a grip on his “reality”. We do not see the world as the world is. We see the world as we are. In catastrophic situations when emotions are running high, people tend to cling more tightly to their belief systems. It was clear to me that Advocate Teffo really did believe that his “collapse” and withdrawal from the case was the result of a malevolent, diabolical act against him. He said he started having nightmares after Judge Maumela brought “his sangoma” to court, and his ill-treatment towards him increased.
One can call it “confirmation bias” but let the one who is without confirmation bias, cast the first stone.
My own plausibility structure biases me to take a completely different view of Judge Maumela’s handling of things.
From my perch in the public gallery, interacting with other observers, and when watching the live feed on YouTube and reading the comments of the audience, I was impressed and influenced by a wealth of wisdom that is out there. “There can be no view other than from a view point”, as Gunnar Myrdal wisely said, I have been enriched by the multiple perspectives of so many view points, all tending to coalesce around a sense that this trial was hugely important — far more so than the trial of Oscar Pistorius which introduced the South African public to see justice being done on TV.
Or not being done.
Moreover I have been impressed with the way in which Judge Maumela has tried to blend a tough legal mind and, as he has now said, a tender heart softened by his regular consultations with his divine physician, Jesus. He did allowed his impatience to get the better of him at times, but he earned much sympathy and respect from the audience.
The “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” multiplied for Advocate Teffo when was summonsed to appear before two other judges J Nyati and J Bokoko in the North Gauteng High Court on 4th August to respond to an application brought by the Legal Practitioners Council to have him struck off the roll for unprofessional conduct. The complaints against him in that matter relate to issues that predate his involvement in the Senzo Meyiwa trial. But if he survives that trial, there are sure to be more complaints about his statements about Judge Maumela’s alleged recourse to witchcraft.
The Court showed little patience with Advocate Teffo — who was conducting his own defence because the suddenness of the proceedings did not allow him enough time to hire an attorney to defend him. The two presiding judges reserved judgement and adjourned, turning their backs on Advocate Teffo’s protestations that he had not been given a fair hearing. His appeal for a postponement so that he could prepare his defence went unheard.
I will reserve comment on that matter until judgement day.
The cumulative impact of all the above on Advocate Teffo’s state of mind has the makings of a Shakespearian tragedy.
Being hard on the problem
However, if we are too hard on Advocate Teffo, we risk scapegoating him instead of facing the fact that “something is rotten in the State of South Africa” to paraphrase Hamlets words. Advocate Teffo has helped expose the rot.
If we are going to indeed be hard on the problem, what then is it?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer the German theologian martyred for his opposition to Adolf Hitler, explains Advocate Teffo’s motivation:
“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”
From the outset, Advocate Teffo’s entire case was based on a deeply held belief that the State was prosecuting the wrong case docket, (CAS #636) which pursues a line of investigation based on the assumption that Senzo Meyiwa’s death was a contract killing. He tried to testify from the bar that the National Prosecuting Authority had brought a contrived case to court to framed his clients so as to protect the real perpetrator(s). He argued that a fundamental miscarriage of justice was about to occur if the work done by other respected investigators, on Case # 375 was disregarded. That docket would have indicted people in the house for the killing.
Although many (including myself) agreed with him and also wanted to see a spoke driven into the wheel of what seemed to be a miscarriage of justice, Judge Maumela had taken care to explain in the early stages of the trial that the South African justice system had evolved into a Prosecution led, Adversarial system, rather than an Inquisitorial system in which the presiding judge played a more active role. A prosecution driven protocol means that the presiding judge must respect whatever case the State brought and ensure all parties were given due airtime to make their respective cases.
Moreover, the adversarial system relies only on evidence that enters the court via the witness stand to be examined and cross examined so that an impartial judge can reach a verdict beyond reasonable doubt. “Testifying from the bar” is a no-no.
While simultaneously trying to defend his clients, Advocate Teffo ambitiously sought to put the NPA on trial by driving spokes into the wheel at every opportunity, expecting Judge Maumela to play an active inquisitorial role in support of him. However, just as one cannot referee a soccer match with the rules of rugby, Judge Maumela could never oblige.
But if the Court of Law wasn’t amenable to an inquisitional game, the presence of TV camera’s from all major News channels gave Advocate Teffo a platform to convince the court of public opinion that the NPA was indeed complicit in a conspiracy to protect someone. However to the dismay of many (including me and his instructing attorney) he persisted to testify from the bar making dramatic statements that fingered people who had been in the house when Senzo was shot.
The upshot was that Advocate Teffo made himself a target of ruthless retaliation as a consequence, when on 28 April 2022 police officers entered the court to arrest him and take him to Hillbrow police station for alleged contempt of another court. The SAPS were roundly condemned with the Chief Justice himself castigating them.
Perhaps that own goal by the SAPS influenced Judge Maumela, against his inclination, to allow Advocate Teffo an opportunity to ventilate his concerns about the NPA bringing the wrong case to court. Quoting another of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s lines he raised a laugh in the gallery by saying.
“If you are on the wrong train, it is no use running down the corridor in the opposite direction when the train has left the station”.
Advocate Teffo was given the opportunity to make a legal case to show that the court was indeed on the ‘wrong train’, before it had built up a head of steam.
However, when the Court reconvened to hear his special application, Judge Maumela was astonished to hear Adv Teffo rise to the podium to announce that he had abandoned that application, without due notice, and had opted to rather write to the National Director for Public Prosecutions, Advocate Shamila Batohi to address the problem. Whatever was left of their relationship broke down, and Advocate Teffo announced that in view of the perceived bias of the court against him, he had decided for his own self-preservation to withdraw from the case. He cited the harassment and intimidation he had experienced, and complained about the failure of Judge Maumela to protect him.
Unfortunately, because I have questioned his rationalisation and urged him to reflect more deeply as to whether he is perhaps projecting his own pain and suffering onto the judiciary, Advocate Teffo’s has now also withdrawn from our relationship and said goodbye to me too.
Nevertheless, I still have regard for him, because as Bonhoeffer also taught,
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
He will not be in court when the trial resumes next month, but I will. I will continue to support the process and continue to hope and pray for an outcome that is both just and merciful.
It matters enormously.
This ten-minute video of Sifiso Meyiwa explaining why he has no confidence in the NPA’s current prosecution explains why the SAPS and NPA have so little confidence and legitimacy in the eyes of law-abiding citizens.
According to the stats on my YouTube channel Sifiso’s speech has already been watched by 114,000 people since it was uploaded on 30 March 2022. It exceeds the views of all 130 uploads on my channel by far. The video of the full proceedings of the media conference at the University of Pretoria Centre for Human Rights from which it is extracted has the second highest number of views at 62,666.
I still believe that if justice is served to the Meyiwa family it will be the beginning, not simply of the restoration, but the re-storying of our criminal justice system. If that new story rises, hope will be rekindled in the hearts of many thousands of others who have yet to get closure from violent crimes against them and their loved ones, because of the failures of the criminal justice system.
Next, will the promise of justice for Bazooka Rhadebe’s family be kept?
