On Monday I came back from a very long and tiring journey, to be greeted by a vexing headline at Cape Town International: ‘Zuma Rape Verdict Today’, it read. I sighed, because a part of me already knew what the verdict was going to be. I was certain a not guilty verdict would be returned. Not because I had any evidence that Zuma did not do ‘it’, but because of the way the trial had unfolded, from the search for a ‘qualified judge’, to the unbridled scrutiny of Ms K’s ‘sexual history’. But for me the official verdict was never going to be important. What was of importance to me throughout this trial was the workings of the South African justice system. The outcome of this case in my eyes, and many others, is clear - our justice system has been found guilty. It has been found guilty of being hostile to women, Black women in particular; it is guilty of its refusal to protect us.

From the outset, this system did not protect ‘K’. Instead, from day one, it allowed speculation over who she is. It allowed disgusting demonstrations, reminiscent of the days of witch-burning in Europe and North America in days gone by, by Zuma supporters to continue outside the court. It allowed for the unabated and invasive interrogation of her ‘sexual history,’ as it slowly stripped her of her dignity. What’s more, Judge Van Der Merwe’s 174-page judgment did nothing to restore that dignity. In fact, it served only to further humiliate her.

But what can one expect from a system based on Roman-Dutch law, which by its very nature is not sympathetic to Black women. A system constructed within a framework of white supremacy, and male dominance. One in which the Black woman is at the bottom of the human hierarchy. A system that is blind to the inequalities in our society. One that claims to treat everyone as ‘equal before the law’, all the while denying us our realities, and by extension our humanity. One that reifies colonial constructions of Black women as sexual objects, and overly sexualized beings. One that sprang from the same mindset that prompted Cuvier to dissect Sara Bartmann and place her brutalized genitals and brain on display. This, it must show, is a system whose effects are not going to be wiped out overnight, simply because we have signed a new constitution, or because we had Madiba, or because we live in a new South Africa.

All of this angers me, but not half as much as the pretense that the judiciary is independent and that the law is somehow above politics. It angers me also that the judiciary has a propensity to turn a blind eye to the fact that both in making laws and in their administration, issues of culture, historical experience, political ideologies, values and group interests are very much at play, and that imbricated within these processes are power and authority.

Justice is also not blind, neither are those who administer it. They see, or more aptly do not see, things in particular ways, influenced by their socialization, prescribed as it is by race, class, gender, sexuality, and values. Van Der Merwe, a white male, sitting in judgment in a case, which essentially revolved around the credibility of a Black woman, clearly showed in his six and a half hour judgment that he, like the rest of us, has gaps in his understanding.

“… pressure on a court in a matter like the present is big enough…It is not acceptable that a court be bombarded with political, personal or group agendas and comments. As one contributor to a daily newspaper very correctly put the matter…‘The trial is more about sexual politics and gender relations than it is about rape.’ Wise words but what a pity it had to be said.” (p. 3)

What a pity indeed! It would seem that rape and gender relations, within a patriarchal society, following on the judges reasoning, bear no relation to each other: one is about power relations within a system of male dominance, while the other is about?

K’s sexual orientation, her ‘disappeared hymen ring’, and mental health were at the centre of his treatise. Am I the only one finding this offensive? Am I the only who thinks that there is something seriously wrong with a judiciary that can have a white man so strip a Black woman of her dignity, in a sanctified, socially sanctioned manner? Am I the only one who feels that we are in desperate need of a different justice system? One infused with dignity that comes with respecting people’s humanity, especially that of Black women. One that will ensure that both those who have been wronged or who felt that they have been wronged and those who have done wrong, or have been accused of having done wrong, can find peace and healing?

In the not guilty pronouncement, Zuma has had his dignity restored. K’s kanga will be returned, but the question still remains, who will restore K’s dignity to her?

* Vanessa Ludwig is an African womanist who believes in Justice for Africa, and in particular for African women.

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