ROBERT SOBUKWE
Mr. Robert Sobukwe, the banned leader of the Pan-Africanist Congress, has received a demand from the Dept. of Justice for R1,102, being the costs he incurred in 1971 in legal action against the Minister. Mr. Sobukwe had sought an order compelling the Minister of Justice to relax his banning order to allow him to travel to the airport to use the exit visa granted to him by the Minister of the Interior. His application failed both in the Supreme Court and on appeal. The Rand Daily Mail said of the demand for costs, coming four years after the event, that, "it smacks of petty vengeance on the part of the State."
PASSPORTS REFUSED
The SA government has refused passports to the following:
- Hassan Howa, vice-president of the SA Council of Sport and a leading figure in the campaign for non-racial sport. It is his third refusal. * Nimrod Mkele, an industrial psychologist and marketing consultant, was refused a passport to travel to West Germany to participate in a symposium on conflict in Southern Africa. * Norman Middleton, a Natal leader of the Labour Party and executive member of the Coloured Persons Representative Council, was denied a passport after refusing to give the government an undertaking that he would not "damage South Africa's image abroad."
Mr. Middleton, who is also the president of the SA Soccer Federation and of the non-racial South African Council of Sport, has previously been refused a passport when he wished to attend the 1974 annual conference of the world soccer body, FIFA.
APPEALS
- Dr. Neville Alexander, the outstanding Coloured specialist in German literature who served a ten-year sentence under the Sabotage Act on Robben Island, and who in April 1974, shortly before he had completed his sentence, was banned for five years, applied to court last year for an order compelling the Minister of Justice to place before the court the information upon which he relied in making the banning order. Although his application failed on the terms in which it was made, the court did order the Minister to reveal to the court what relevant documents he had in his possession, and to state how public policy might be prejudiced by their disclosure.
The Minister appealed against this decision and in August the appeal was upheld by the Appellate Division. Thus the arbitrary powers of the Minister remain untrammelled and banned persons cannot challenge the act of banning in the courts with any hope of success. Dr. Alexander now works as a clerk in a supermarket.
- Patrick Laurence, a reporter on the Rand Daily Mail, in August 1973 was found guilty under Suppression of Communism Act of attempting to publish (in The Observer, London) an interview with a banned man, Robert Sobukwe. He was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for 3 years. He appealed to the Transvaal Provincial Division and lost in June 1975. He appealed again, to the Appellate Division in Bloemfontein, and lost again, on a majority verdict in September 1975.
- Clive Keegan, 24, banned former vice-president of NUSAS, was found guilty in January 1975 of contravening his banning order by attending a social gathering, namely a party held to celebrate the opening of Keegan's bookshop in Rondebosch, Cape Town. On appeal to the Supreme Court the conviction was not upheld.
- Christopher Wood, another former NUSAS leader, lost his appeal against a conviction under the Suppression of Communism Act for breaking his banning order by the playing of bridge with another banned person, Neville Curtis, and others. However, his appeal against the sentence of 14 days imprisonment was successful, and a suspended sentence was imposed.
