South Africa – On 26 March 2019 there will be a watershed court case, which will determine whether there is any space left in the South African courts for the constitution and international covenants. It will show whether revenge on, and oppression of, the Boer people pertains such a priority in South Africa that it negates all justice.
Professor Hercules Booysen, an internationally renowned academic and jurist, intends to appear on behalf of Mrs Riëtte Pretorius in the Pretoria High Court. She requests the court to protect her constitutional and international acknowledged right of association and protection of her family. Her request is that her family should be temporarily released: it includes her husband, Dr Wilhelm Pretorius, her father-in-law, Dr Lets Pretorius and her brother-in-law, Dr. Johan Pretorius.
Their right to freedom has been infringed since 2002, the year of their arrest in connection with the Boeremag case. The temporary release is being requested, pending the completion of the complaint, laid by her family members at the United Nation’s Human Rights Committee in 2018. The complaint could take up to four years before being finalised. This means that her family members, which are already being deprived of their freedom for 17 years, must endure another 4 years of infringement of their rights, before the UN Committee rules that they should be released. Pretorius argues in her court papers that, due to the judicial foundation of their complaint, the UN Committee could not come to another conclusion. She bases her application on three arguments regarding their unlawful incarceration:
- Five years after their sentence, they could still not succeed to appeal. This has violated their right to appeal. According to the Constitution and International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, of which South Africa is a party, it also infringes their right to a fair trial.
- The state refuses to present them with a complete record and documentation of the trial and deprive them of the necessary documents for appeal. This also infringes their constitutional and internationally protected right to appeal.
- Their right to a lawful constituted court was infringed. The law determines that assessors only serve until the verdict. In their trial the assessors remained on the bench till the end of sentence, which manifest an unlawful court. They were therefore sentenced by an unlawfully constituted court.
Boervin asks for everybody’s support and prayers for this case. It could be the beginning of the release of the Boer Political prisoners and also send a message to the state of consequences about the oppression of the Boer People. Anyone who wishes to attend the court case is welcome, since it is a public hearing.
For enquiries contact Riëtte Pretorius
E-mail: [email protected] Website: https://boervin.org/
Mobile: +27 82 776 6597
BOERVIN
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