Dr Brian Benfield | Retired Professor | Department of Economics | University of the Witwatersrand | Senior Associate and Board Member | Free Market Foundation | mail me |
The Financial Intelligence Centre’s attempt to impose retrospective penalties for a period extending fully five years prior to the existence of any lawful authority is not merely misguided, it is a brazen affront to the rule of law.
In purporting to punish conduct that fell entirely outside its statutory remit at the relevant time, the Centre has exhibited a form of bureaucratic arrogance that borders on the authoritarian. This is a flagrant abuse of power – an assertion of authority ex post facto that betrays a troubling institutional culture in which legal limits are treated as optional and citizens as subordinate to administrative whim.
Such conduct reflects a contemptuous indifference to the most basic principles of legality and fairness, and raises serious questions about the discipline, restraint and accountability of those entrusted with the exercise of public power.
A regulator beyond its limits
The recent judgment of the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, rebuking the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) for…
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