The Gender Equality Commission wants the government to think carefully before signing international treaties in order to avoid being part of arrangements that end up hurting South Africa’s own national interests.
The commission has joined forces with rights groups to raise funds to help double olympic gold medalist Caster Semenya for her upcoming case at the European Court of Human Rights.
Semenya needs up to R 4million of which her legal team has asked South Africans to help.
Commission Chairperson Advocate Nthabiseng Sepanya-Mogale addressed the media alongside Semenya and her legal team in Sandton on Friday and said the commission was lobbying the government to support Semenya in her battle which has been going on for a decade and half.
“We are currently lobbying government, in fact just yesterday we informally met with deputy ministers from three departments that we consider relevant to this matter and we will continue to lobby because we want the government to see this for what it is and when I say what it is I am saying Caster is unable to run nationally because we are a signatory to some of the bodies that have overridden Caster’s career so there’s a need for that strategic high level decision that the government has got to make either in protest or consciously to say we cannot be part of that, something has got to give,” said Sepanya-Mogale.
It is not the first time that the government finds itself tied up by an international instrument. In 2015 the DA rushed to court to force the government to prevent then Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir from leaving the country. The opposition had successfully argued that as a signatory of the Hague based International Criminal Court, South Africa was obliged to arrest and handover Al-Bashir, deemed a fugitive by the court after a warrant of arrest was issued against him for crimes related to his time as leader of the East African country.
The government was saved by Al-Bashir sneaking out of the country just before the DA won the case and last year South Africa’s hosting of the BRICS summit was marred in controversy as the government struggled to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to not physically attend the gathering fearing opposition pressure to arrest him in execution of an ICC warrant issued against him for alleged war crimes.
Sepanya-Mogale believes some of the deals treaties may have been signed in happier times without full appreciation of their implications and suggested that South Africa review its position on some of the issues.
“We also have to go deeper and say to our legislators let’s not romanticise anymore the signing of international instruments. Let us now go deeper in and scratch the surface and say what does it mean when we sign the following, what does it mean when we are a signatory of SEDO? and here we are a violation of SEDO is happening in our midst, right under our noses being directed to one of our own, what then is our role so I think it must go deeper, there must be some reflection and introspection that we do as a country and the CGE is ready,” she said.