The news that an official in South Africa’s Department of Justice and Constitutional Development authorised the service of court papers on United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, without ministerial consent, is nothing short of scandalous. It is an act that reeks of administrative recklessness and moral cowardice, and it calls into question the very integrity of South Africa’s justice machinery at a time when the world is watching its moral stance on Palestine.

That such a manoeuvre could take place within the Ministry of Justice – the very institution charged with upholding legality and sovereignty – exposes a dangerous fracture in the state’s internal command chain. The Department’s hurried apology and insistence that the Minister and Director-General were unaware of the action offer little comfort. One must ask: who authorised the letter? Who facilitated the sheriff’s approach? And, most importantly, whose interests did this rogue action serve?

Though passed off as a harmless procedural misstep, it seems more likely that this was the weaponisation of legal form in service of a political project. The request came from the ‘Christian Friends of Israeli Communities’, a US based organisation with an overt ideological agenda. To allow such a body to use South African legal infrastructure to intimidate a UN official investigating Israeli violations in Palestine is to allow foreign influence to penetrate the heart of a sovereign state’s judicial processes.

The Statement by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development on the Irregular Service of Process on the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Ms. Francesca Albanese, issued on 26 October 2025, reads:

“The Department has established that the service of process was effected without the knowledge or approval of either the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development or the Director-General, who serves as the Head of the Central Authority, as is required by Section 40(2) of the Superior Courts Act, 2013 (Act 10 of 2013).”

Evidently, an internal official proceeded regardless, showing contempt for the rule of law and for the constitutional chain of accountability. Are we expected to believe that this is a simple bureaucratic lapse?

Francesca Albanese has been the target of sustained campaigns by pro-Israel groups intent on discrediting her work on the occupied Palestinian territories. Her sharp, evidence-based critiques of Israeli apartheid have unsettled those who profit from the narrative of Israeli victimhood. The idea that such forces could reach through South Africa’s legal system to attempt a public humiliation of her here – in the country that birthed the language of anti-apartheid – is disgraceful.

South Africa’s historic moral position on Palestine has been one of solidarity, rooted in the shared experience of colonisation, dispossession, and racial subjugation. Allowing external Zionist-aligned groups to manipulate local legal processes for their political warfare amounts to a desecration of that legacy. It reveals how easily sections of our bureaucracy can be infiltrated by global networks that discipline dissent under the pretence of legality.

The Minister’s apology, while necessary, cannot obscure the deeper institutional dysfunction at play. Internal consequence management is inadequate. This incident demands a forensic audit of departmental processes, including whether there are sympathisers within the civil service acting on behalf of external interests. When state officials unilaterally execute actions with international consequences, they undermine the entire fabric of constitutional governance.

The irony is palpable: South Africa, long accused by Western states of politicising its foreign policy through its support of Palestine, now finds its own institutions being used as instruments of political intimidation. This inversion of sovereignty – where the state’s administrative organs act as conduits for foreign lobbying – signals how the apparatus of the post-apartheid state has become vulnerable to ideological capture.

The act of serving papers on a UN official, especially one investigating apartheid conditions in Palestine, cannot be divorced from its geopolitical context. It is an act of symbolic aggression. It carries the insinuation that South Africa is willing to aid those who delegitimise international law when it challenges Western-backed occupation. Just how the Department of Justice became a vehicle for such an intolerable act is a question that must be answered.

The apology extended to Ms Albanese and the United Nations is the bare minimum. What is required is public transparency about who was behind this attempt, and whether this was an isolated act of ignorance or a coordinated effort by ideological networks embedded within the state bureaucracy. Without such clarity, the Department will be seen as an unreliable guardian of the rule of law.

This incident must also be understood within the wider context of how Western and Zionist interests increasingly weaponise law, media, banks, and bureaucratic channels to discipline those who speak truth to imperial power. Albanese’s investigation into Israeli war crimes has made her a target. It is untenable that this targeting now extends into South African institutions.

South Africa’s moral authority in global politics depends on its ability to uphold its constitutional values without fear or favour. That includes protecting those who defend human rights and international law. A rogue act of service carried out on behalf of a foreign lobby group strikes at the heart of that authority.

The Department of Justice cannot brush this off as an administrative irregularity. It must expose every actor involved, revoke any privileges they hold, and reaffirm that the sovereignty of the Republic is not for hire to the highest ideological bidder.

* Gillian Schutte is a South African writer, filmmaker, poet, and uncompromising social justice activist. Founder of Media for Justice and co-owner of handHeld Films, she is recognised for hard-hitting documentaries and incisive opinion pieces that dismantle whiteness, neoliberal capitalism, and imperial power.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.

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