Pretoria - An 11th-hour urgent attempt by three North West members of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) to stop Friday’s national conference from taking place failed when the high court in Pretoria dismissed their application.
It was found the application was not urgent and an abuse of the court’s process.
Judge Moses Mavundla said the three knew for at least the past three months the congress was due to take place on Friday and had ample opportunity to voice their grievances.
A lot of work and money – said to be about R15 million – had gone into arranging the conference, the judge said, and many of the about 10 000 delegates had probably already arrived by last night.
The three members – Gontse Maruping, Nicholas Jood and Mbuyiselo Booi – complained about alleged irregular activities which include so-called gate keeping and “signature campaigns”.
They said this was done to exclude individuals at branch level from holding proper branch meetings where democratically elected members were supposed to represent the province at the national congress.
According to them the aim of gate keeping and signature campaigns by the provincial executive committee and the regional executive committee was to unduly influence the outcome of the congress where new leaders would be elected and policies discussed.
According to them, about 70 complaints were raised and referred to the national dispute resolution committee of the party.
This committee said on August 24 it would by August 28 answer to these allegations, but the applicants said to this day they had not heard a word.
Their advocate, John Sullivan, told Judge Mavundla they had done everything they could to try and resolve these issues and they had no choice but to approach the court.
“We are here to protect the democracy of the party. Delegates must be democratically selected.
“Democracy has to be protected, even if it is at a cost of R15 million,” Sullivan said.
From the start of proceedings the judge repeatedly questioned when the disputes arose and why the applicants did not act sooner.
Advocate Hassan Katje, appearing for the national task team of the ANCYL, called the application “absolute nonsense”.
“How can three members hold the conference to ransom while 10 000 people are due to attend? It is ridiculous that they now want to stop the ship.”
The respondents also complained they were given notice of the urgent application at around 2pm on Thursday, and told to meet the applicants at court two hours later.
They had no time to prepare any court papers and had to “shoot from the hip”.
The application, which was heard last night, was attended by ministers and ANC senior officials Fikile Mbalula and Nathi Mthethwa, who are members of the task team, as well as by Deputy Minister of Local Government Andries Nel.
Pretoria News