Twenty-five families of anti-apartheid activists and survivors of apartheid-era crimes are forcing the African National Congress (ANC) and government to admit to its “failures and obligations” to grant justice to the families.

On Monday, with assistance from non-profit Foundation for Human Rights and law firm Webber Wentzel, the families brought an application in the Pretoria High Court against President Cyril Ramaphosa and his government, seeking constitutional damages for the government’s “gross failure” to adequately investigate and prosecute apartheid-era political crimes following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

They seek an order compelling Ramaphosa to establish an independent and public commission of inquiry into the political interference that resulted in the suppression of several hundred serious crimes arising from South Africa’s past.

The families also want to know the names of the ANC politicians "who decided that the activists must not be granted justice."

The applicants are the survivors of the Highgate Hotel Massacre, Neville Beling and Karl Weber; as well as the family members of the Cradock Four, Richard and Irene Motasi, Caiphus Nyoka, the PEBCO three, the COSAS four, Nokuthula Simelane, Rick Turner, Musawakhe 'Sbho' Phewa, Hoosen Haffejee, Mxolisi 'Dicky' Jacobs, Imam Abdullah Haron, Deon Harris, Matthews 'Mojo' Mabelane, Ntombikayise Priscilla Kubheka, Ignatius 'Iggy' Mthebule and Nicholas Ramatua 'Boiki' Tlhapi.

Journalist Lukhanyo Calata, the son of Fort Calata, one of the Cradock Four murdered by the South African police in 1985, said he had hoped his father’s killers would have been prosecuted much sooner.

“It’s a very sad today for me to sit here to be part of an application or legal challenge, like this against the State, because this is not what I wanted. I would have preferred the State to have acted when it had the time to do so. To prosecute my father’s killers and to allow justice for me, my mother and my sisters, and to create the kind of society where my father’s life mattered . . .

“…when successive African National Congress-led administrations failed to do that, it told me that my father’s life, that Matthew Goniwe’s life, Sparrow Mkonto’s life, and Sicelo Mhlauli’s life, who become known as the Cradock Four, that their lives did not matter in a government that has been led by the ANC,” said Lukhanyo Calata.

He said justice was not something one could outsource.

TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION SUPPRESSIONS

Last year, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola re-opened the inquest into the deaths of the Cradock Four. The Minister’s decision came on the recommendations of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

He explained that in the more than 20 years following the handover of the TRC report to former President Thabo Mbeki, government Ministers had intervened to prevent the NPA from carrying out its constitutional mandate to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.

“Justice delayed in this manner has ensured that justice is permanently denied to our families,” Lamola said.

Head of the Webber Wentzel Pro Bono Department Odette Geldenhuys highlighted that constitutional damages were last resort legal remedies for addressing “egregious violations” of constitutional rights by the State.

“In this case, the suppression of post-TRC accountability efforts has led to the loss of witnesses, perpetrators and evidence, making prosecutions impossible in most cases and denying survivors and victims' families rights to justice, truth, and closure,” said Geldenhuys.

Foundation for Human Rights executive director Dr Zaid Kimmie emphasised that the case was pursued in the public interest and for all survivors and families of victims who aim to address the “systemic failure” caused by political interference in the investigations and prosecutions of the TRC cases.

The families hope the court will force Ramaphosa into action, claiming that letters written to the President have been ignored.

“…so now let us see if he will be in a position to ignore the court. When the court hopefully orders him to set up this commission of inquiry, so that we can know the truth about who are the people inside the ANC that betrayed us [families], that allowed our fathers’ killers to die with peace, when we are sad, without any justice. I am saying that without justice for me, my father, and my family they will not have peace, not now and not ever,” said Calata.