An inquiry into allegations that South Africa's Black-led governments interfered with investigations into apartheid-era crimes was postponed on its first day Monday over objections to one of the inquiry's lawyers.
President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered the inquiry in April after decades of pressure from families of victims who say post-apartheid governments have failed them by not prosecuting those responsible. The country's racist system of apartheid officially ended in 1994.
The National Prosecuting Authority on Monday argued that Ishmael Semenya, the inquiry's chief evidence leader, was compromised because he previously advised on a former prosecuting policy for apartheid-era crimes that was declared unconstitutional.
The inquiry’s head, Judge Sisi Khampepe, ordered the NPA and others backing the objection, including South Africa's justice department, to file any application for Semenya's recusal by Wednesday. The judge ordered the inquiry to continue on Nov. 26, when the application would be considered. Semenya did not comment.
Around 150 cases of apartheid-era crimes had been recommended for prosecution by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established by then- President Nelson Mandela in 1996 and aimed at documenting the era's abuses.
That commission offered some perpetrators amnesty in exchange for their confessions, but many did not ask for or receive amnesty, and the lack of prosecutions has long been a grievance for many South Africans.
Mandela's African National Congress party was pivotal in ending apartheid, but ANC-led governments since then have been criticized for failing to ensure abuses were investigated.
In 2008, a court in the capital, Pretoria, criticized a National Prosecuting Authority policy as “absurd and unconstitutional" and said it did not prioritize prosecutions for apartheid-era crimes. Semenya advised on that policy.
In January, more than 20 families of apartheid-era victims sued Ramaphosa and his government, seeking around $9.7 million in damages and an independent inquiry into possible interference in investigations.
Ramaphosa ordered the inquiry as part of the settlement in that case. Damages are still being considered by a court.
South Africa's government has moved to confront the legacy of apartheid this year by ordering new inquiries into the killings of several prominent figures by apartheid security forces, some of them over a half-century later.
Last month, a new inquest found that then-ANC leader Albert Luthuli was beaten to death in 1967 and did not die after being hit by a freight train, as an original inquest by apartheid authorities found. Luthuli's family had called for his death to be investigated.
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