15 May 2018 | Volume 77 | Edition 5
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fter three years of Fees Must Fall protests beginning in 2015, over a dozen student activists currently attending trial and facing new charges are calling for the decriminalisation of protest activities. In 2016 the University established the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC), tasked with “[mapping] an inclusive and fair course for the university as it tackles the legacy of the so-called Shackville protests and to focus on the issues that have caused division on our university campus,” per the University website. However, some students still feel that the independent commission is not doing enough. “The point of the IRTC is to clear all these tensions, to give amnesty to students with pending charges, to get rid of all these issues. “The point of the IRTC is to clear all these tensions, to give amnesty to students with pending charges, to get rid of all these issues. But there’s new charges coming up. So how do we explain that we have an Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission whilst we’re still charging students for things?” Seipati Tshabalala, former SRC President and prominent student activist with an ongoing case, asks. Activist and Honours student Masixole Mlandu echoes her sentiment. “It’s very confusing because on the other side, internally in the University we are having restorative talks. But yet the very same University continues to prosecute us outside of the University”, he
says. “There’s no way these charges are not brought by the University, they are brought by the University… You want us to forgive each other but you have a gun on our head,” he adds. Here, Mlandu is critiquing an important distinction to the University. On the 30th of October 2017, the Western Cape High Court granted UCT an interim interdict, forbidding any and all unlawful protest action as a response to disruptions earlier in the semester. Though students that contravene the interdict face criminal charges, the University’s Media Liaison Elijah Moholola says UCT has no jurisdiction over “independent legal proceedings instituted and overseen by the judiciary.” As such he provided no further comment. The legality of protests then is fairly black and white, but the ethics of effectively criminalising the Fees Must Fall movement remain grey. For instance, some students that participated in protests after the interdict was implemented were only recently informed that they would be facing criminal charges. For third-year Commerce student Malusi Ngidi, the news came just before a job interview in late March. “I get to the interview, I greet, they bring me back with small talk, and they say, ‘Wow, you’re such a happy person!’ Then I take out my phone to switch it off so it doesn’t disturb me. I then see the message. It’s a screenshot sent to me by friends that the police are looking for these people. And then I see my name. And I see that it’s violation of the court interdict and whatnot and we should go to court on Monday. And at that moment the mood changed,” he recalls. Ngidi’s
Decriminalising FeesMustFall
By Briana Trujillo
Some student activists might be graduating with both criminal records and UCT degrees after violating the interim interdict during protests in 2017.
case was eventually dropped. He and the four other students charged in his case complain that dealing with the charges takes a toll on their academics.
The legality of protests then is fairly black and white, but the ethics of effectively criminalising the Fees Must Fall movement remain gray. “I was writing exams, having submissions during the time so, my last three weeks were just a horrific experience around the institution because I was just a fugitive,” Khayalethu Maneli says, a second year studying Politics, Philosophy, and Sociology. Some of the protesting students tell similar stories. Tshabalala says that this academic year, she’s been to court twelve times, over a 2017 protest for violating the interdict and malicious damage to property. “It’s very disruptive of my academics. Sometimes I have to go to court twice, three
times a week, for consultation with my lawyer, and then you know, proceedings. And the saddest thing is court doesn’t even start on time. So they’ll say be there at 8:30, we’ll start at 10am, and we’ll just be chilling there, and you know, you have to explain to your tutor,” she says. Lufuno Musetsho, Director of Musetsho & Associated Attorneys is currently representing several students in court. He says, “We cannot fault the University for charging the students, if there is criminal activities going on. But they need to be reasonable in doing these things, because they don’t have to pursue petty cases. Like the example that I’m giving you of Masixole’s case where he’s charged with damaging blinds.” Musetsho’s talking about Mlandu’s outstanding case, in which he is charged with intimidation, public violence, violation of the interdict and malicious damage to property for his role in a protest in which he is accused of attempting to get workers to join the disruption. Musetsho claims that the broken blinds
cost less than R300. To him, the issue is about the University’s desperation to enforce the interdict. When asked how many cases he currently has, he says he’s lost count. In response to these questions of criminalisation, IRTC Chairperson Mosibudi Mangena also makes it a point to separate students facing University disciplinary hearings and students that are being charged by the police for violating the interdict.
“So how do we explain that we have an Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission whilst we’re still charging students for things?” “Our understanding is that there are students who are charged by the police, and not by the University. And in instances where the University was complainant we might be able to deal with that. But in instances where