Parly committee welcomes Kubayi's withdrawal of permission to serve legal papers on UN special rapporteur Albanese

Parliament’s international relations committee has welcomed the justice minister’s withdrawal of permission to serve legal papers on the United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian-occupied territories, Francesca Albanese.

Albanese is currently in Cape Town and is expected to address Parliament’s portfolio committee on Tuesday, before virtually delivering her latest report to the United Nations, in which she will address the complicity of states in fuelling Israel’s war on Gaza.

Two US-based lobby groups, through a court sheriff, attempted to serve Albanese in Johannesburg on Saturday, after she delivered the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture.

The work of Albanese has made her an enemy of those who advocate for Israel’s right to wage a war on Gaza.

The Italian human rights lawyer is facing a defamation suit from the Christian Friends of Israeli communities, and Christians for Israel, USA, whose attorneys applied through the justice department to serve her with legal papers for a defamation suit they have launched against her in the United States.

But Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi on Sunday hastily sought to diffuse a potential diplomatic debacle, saying that she did not approve an application to serve Albanese, and retracted the permission ostensibly granted by a justice ministry official who’s now facing disciplinary consequences.

Albanese addressed Capetonians at a packed Groote Kerk in Cape Town on Sunday, praising South Africa for its genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

On Tuesday, she will use the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation as her base to speak directly to the United Nations on her latest findings, as she’s banned from entering the United States.

In her latest report, Albanese said that by portraying Palestinian civilians as human shields, and the onslaught in Gaza as a battle of civilisation against barbarism, Israel’s allies have sought to justify their own complicity in genocide.