Cape Town - The Economic Freedom Front (EFF) on Monday sharply criticised Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe for his failure to allocate a date for the party’s urgent application for an interdict against a contempt of Parliament finding against 20 of its MPs.
“The EFF has instructed its senior counsel to write Judge Hlophe a letter requesting an allocation, failing which we shall approach the Constitutional Court on an urgent basis,” said party spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) also would be approached to lay a complaint about Judge Hlophe’s alleged bias over comments made about the EFF’s red overalls. It is understood the EFF’s ire arose after a meeting in which the judge questioned the validity of the urgent interdict against Parliament’s powers and privileges committee’s guilty verdict against the MPs.
When their lawyer tried to explain, Ndlozi said, he was “insulted” and “dismissed”. The EFF lawyer also was told to “just get out and go to the media” and that “his clients must never set foot in his court with overalls, otherwise he would chuck them out of his court as he will never tolerate what (his) clients do in Parliament”.
The EFF filed the urgent interdict application after the last sitting of the National Assembly on November 27 adopted the committee’s guilty verdict and suspension without pay of 12 EFF MPs for between 14 and 30 days, and imposed on the eight others a fine equivalent of 14 days’ salary and an order to apologise.
The parliamentary disciplinary process arose from the EFF “Pay back the money” fracas, which led to the abandoning of President Jacob Zuma’s question time on August 21. Following the terse sitting of the House late last month, the ANC used its numbers to adopt the powers and privileges findings, after every other opposition party distanced itself from the verdict because of concerns over, among other, procedural fairness.
The JSC said last night it could not comment until a complaint was before it.
Cape Argus