Wednesday, 16 August 2017 – Chairperson of the High Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and Acceleration of Fundamental Change, former President Kgalema Motlanthe, says significant progress has been made over the two days and the eminent September deadline is reachable.

Professor Ben Turok who facilitated the workshop held in Sandton in Gauteng echoed former President Motlanthe’s sentiments: “An enormous work has been done. We are faced with a substantial report.”

Reflecting on the High Level Panel’s grueling and intense processes over the past 18 months, the Chairperson of the Social Cohesion and Nation Building focus group, Judge Pillay indicated that she was surprised and delighted to join the Panel because “no country in the world has an exercise such as this, where Parliament set up a High Level Panel to look into its own performance and how they have been delivering on the goals they have set for themselves” and “if we can make this work here in South Africa, then we can spread the message of accountability to other Parliaments.”

Judge Pillay served internationally for about 20 years. She served as a Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which dealt with genocide cases from 1995 to 2003. She was appointed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003 to 2008 and was then elected by the United Nation’s General Assembly as the High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. Judge Pillay’s attachment to South African issues is clear, as she says, “But your heart is always in your country that’s why I picked up this Panel. In my last position as the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, it was my job to look for good practices all over the world,” she said.

On her experiences over the past 18 months since the launch of this Panel, Judge Pillay says she didn’t think it would take a long as 18 months and continues to say, “My first impression is how thorough this panel has been. We took our time because we wanted to be thorough and particularly wanted to capture the voices of the people. We listened to many experts.” The Panel consulted experts because “they carried out the research. We needed the data, if we say this is a poor country then we need the supporting data. If we say there is gender discrimination, then we need the research data to see what the differentials are. So we have a lot of inputs from experts and human rights activists, lawyers and other professionals.”

What moved her the most are the nine public hearings held across all provinces: “I was very surprised that people came in their thousands. They spoke freely with great emotion, anger and frustration. I was almost moved to tears. We knew that things were bad in the rural areas for instance but when you hear people saying they are staying fifteen people in a room with their children, relatives with disabilities and elderly mother - with no water, no schools, then you really get to the guts of this country, that we had the best intention, we have very good laws but it’s not working on the ground.”

Judge Pillay concluded that the panel is very practical: “We are addressing each law, looking at what the gaps are. Is the law right? We are basically addressing the detail. That is the usefulness of this panel. We are going to come up with concrete recommendations.”

The youngest member of the Panel, Mr Thulani Tshefuta, who serves on the Poverty, unemployment, inequality and equitable distribution of wealth focus group agrees with Judge Pillay that the essence of the Panel is a rare opportunity which goes into the heart of why legislation exists: “It exists to make an impact on the daily lives of the people. So the importance of the Panel is that it pauses, looks back and sees what has been achieved and not achieved through the legislation that has been passed. It is a rare opportunity that we would pause and reflect because we are always so consumed in daily activities and the challenges that we are confronted with on a daily basis - we always feel the urge to move forward. It was visionary on the part of the Parliament that it introduced the panel to say let’s take stock of the work so far, so that what comes up of the process is able to inform our moving forward.”

Mr Tshefuta, the former President of the South African Youth Council and the current Chairperson of the Youth Development Centre of Excellence, remarked that across all other processes of the panel, the youth has had thorough representation: “In terms of the submissions that we have received, we have heard the youth voices. In terms of the public hearings, we have heard vibrant youth voices that have been represented and we think that the Panel is empowered to see the work we are doing through the youth’s perspective.”

In conclusion, Mr Tshefuta said that the most profound area for him is that people did not only voice their challenges and their frustrations: “They equally raised proposals on what should be done as solutions. Equally, whilst some of these challenges may reside in those communities, solutions can equally be found from them. Through public hearings we rose to a level where we identified what should be done to improve the lives of the people by the people themselves.”

The High Level Panel is scheduled to present its report to the Speaker’s Forum and Parliament on 15 September 2017.

For media interviews please contact Nolizwi Magwagwa on  nmagwagwa@parliament.gov.za or  call her on 081 716 5824

ISSUED BY THE HIGH LEVEL PANEL ON THE ASSESSMENT OF KEY LEGISLATION AND THE ACCELERATION OF FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE