SLR highlights a case involving former South African judge Nkolo Motata, whose actions and subsequent handling of the situation sparked controversy. The story begins with an incident in 2007 where a drunken Motata crashes his car into a property owned by Richard Baird, who calls the police for assistance. Motata proceeds to insult Baird and accuse him of racism. After a prolonged legal process spanning over 16 years, Motata has now been impeached and will lose his retirement benefits. The Supreme Court of Appeal criticised the Judicial Services Commission for mishandling the case. SLR discusses the impact of false accusations of racism and suggests that treating them as a crime would restore credibility to real instances of racism.
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The trials of Richard Baird
By Simon Lincoln-Reader
Say you’re living in a house in Hurlingham, Johannesburg in early 2007. Crime is crippling the city. It’s never far from your mind that the previous year, 4 policemen are cut to pieces by bullets in a witchdoctor’s house in Jeppestown. Just up the ridge in Craighall a grandmother is shot point blank reversing out her driveway. One of South Africa’s worst serial rapists and armed robbers has only recently been apprehended following an ‘escape’ from C-MAX. The immigration specialist at Dunkeld centre is only offering appointments next year.
Then one night you’re awoken by a call from the tenant of a house you own. Panicking, the tenant explains that a car has crashed through the perimeter wall, smashed it to pieces, and is now sitting idle in your property. You scramble to the scene and discover the car is a Jaguar, and that the driver is pissed. As he’s mumbling and swearing – sometimes in Afrikaans – you call the police, but then he starts insulting you, and as you’re waiting for the filth to arrive, the man looks at you through bloodshot eyes and slurs, ‘racist’. Yes, it would be enough to enrage you, but the real tragedy would occur only later, when you discover that the man is a senior Judge – and, despite his inebriation, will labour to have the accusation of ‘racist’ form the central feature of this incident.Â
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It has taken over 16 years for the case of the wankered former Judge, Nkolo Motata, to reach partial resolution. As it relates to law, Motata will now be impeached and lose the benefits he’s been entitled to since his retirement in 2017. Equally importantly, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) slammed the Judicial Services Commission’s (JSC) absurd decision to disregard one of the complaints against Motata on a technicality, which gave the powerful body the appearance of ‘protecting it’s own’ and ‘accusing the accuser’.
Richard Baird was the accuser, the man awoken in January 2007. For over 16 years, the case slugged its way through fines, appeals, hearing, tribunals then recommendations. For over 16 years he was sentenced to delays and uncertainty; if ever there was a use case in the process being the punishment, surely it is this. It’s now 2023, and the smear of racist, and its heightened emphasis in this case, has cost him everything – his properties, income and his marriage, leaving him unable to provide child support.Â
There are mercies to consider. Imagine if the wankered Judge had crashed into the wall in 2020, at the explosion of the identarian Ponzi scheme? Imagine if the SCA Judges were issued with ‘guidance handbooks’ – as they are now in the UK – which make non sequitur references to ‘whiteness’? Imagine if Thabo Mbeki, then Jacob Zuma, then Cyril Ramaphosa, paid ‘influencers’ to circulate Motata’s ‘racist’ smear across social media, as the handlers of America’s incumbent sock puppet currently do on similar issues?
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As welcome as the SCA’s decision is, it still leaves how Baird was treated that night unresolved. The media has always been terrified of this issue, and only seized Motata being wrecked as evidence of his wrongdoing; scrutinising why he called Baird a racist, and expressing just how destructive this was, well, that would be problematic. Motata was clearly comfortable: he knew in the immediate and the future the chances of being held accountable for his remarks were slim. Theoretically, the fake charge of racism should have stopped trending in the country the day former Western Cape MEP David Malatsi attempted to distract from his own corruption way back in the early 2000s. But for some reason it endured, and I think you can look to the scourge of right-on, white liberal journalism to see why.
The correct response, insofar as opposition lawmakers are concerned, would be to make a fake charge of racism as much a crime as racism. For one, that is real equality, but more, it would restore credibility to the real crime, and stop it from providing succour to scoundrels like Malatsi and Motata. In an environment where demand currently outstrips supply, it would also send a strong message to the west, who have started to idolise men and women just as unscrupulous as Motata.Â
Follow SLR on Twitter: @SiLincolnReader
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