The government's withdrawal from the International Criminal Court wasn’t done through the National Assembly’s back door, Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha said in Parliament on Thursday.
Opposition parties argued on Thursday that the cabinet should have consulted Parliament before making the decision.
But Masutha stuck to his guns and said the country’s exit from the ICC was done according to the letter and spirit of the law and the constitution.
He said section 231 of the constitution prescribed that only the cabinet could sign international agreements, and not Parliament.
“Show me one international agreement which was negotiated here first and then sent to the cabinet,” Masutha said.
He added the cabinet didn’t need to seek Parliament’s permission before announcing its withdrawal.
“Are you saying we must seek the concurrence of Parliament?” he asked MPs. “You are accusing us of doing this in the back of Parliament. Not once and no less than twice Parliament sat and discussed this. Where was the secrecy in all of this?”
Opposition MPs said they would reject the government’s exit from the ICC, and warned that they wouldn’t support any bill that sought to do that.
The DA’s Werner Horn said the government’s decision was a disgrace.
He accused the ANC of turning its back on Nelson Mandela’s policy of human rights.
He said the ANC government’s decision to withdraw confirmed that it had turned its back on human rights policies.
Horn said Masutha didn’t believe in either the supremacy of the constitution or the rule of law.
He said Parliament must first approve a bill that would allow South Africa to pull out of the ICC, but that hadn’t happened.
EFF MP Sam Matiase said his party objected to the government’s decision to leave the ICC.
He said the government hadn’t consulted either the judiciary or Parliament before making the decision.
Matiase said the government had rushed the matter.
The IFP’s Albert Mncwango said South Africa had been a great advocate of human rights in the world in recent years, but it was turning its back on that policy.
“We’re very concerned that we could be perceived to want to sacrifice justice at the altar of impunity,” he said.
The United Democratic Movement also rejected the decision to pull out of the ICC, saying the government had made it in haste.