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According to reports, President Jacob Zuma has ordered the government’s protocol unit to ensure that South African ministers never have to put their hand luggage through airport scanners.

The President reportedly issued this instruction on the basis that the Vienna Convention protected ministers from having their luggage scanned.

This follows from a parliamentary reply received yesterday by the DA, regarding the failure of International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane to have her handbag scanned at Oslo International Airport. In this reply, President Zuma stated his support for the Minister’s defence that her decision to refuse was consistent with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

However, both the President and the Minister are wrong.

Article 36 of the Vienna Convention prohibits the inspection of diplomats’ luggage, but does not exempt the luggage of diplomatic officials from pre-flight x-ray scanning. Even this privilege is waived if such luggage is suspected to contain items "prohibited by the law or controlled by the quarantine regulations of the receiving State."

It is also significant that Annex 17 of the International Civil Aviation Organisation on Aviation Security (Doc. 8973) determines that the diplomats and their baggage must be subject to routine pre-boarding screening as it applies to civil aviation security.

This means that in issuing this instruction, the President has asked the Protocol Unit to breach this provision.

There is only one logical conclusion that can be drawn from this. Either the President has been poorly advised, or he has been purposefully disingenuous and has misinterpreted the rules to protect his political allies.

South African Ministers must be prepared to subject themselves to the same regulations as all other foreign diplomats. One has to wonder what our diplomats are carrying in their hand luggage that they are so intent on hiding.

This is another example of Cabinet’s determination to ensure that there is one set of rules for them, and another for everyone else