EFF to go ahead with Parly swearing-in

Published Apr 21, 2015

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Pretoria - The swearing-in of four new Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MPs is expected to go ahead on Tuesday, after those who were given the boot on April 11 failed in their court bid to have the swearing-in stalled.

Mpho Ramakatsa, Andile Mngxitama and Khanyisile Litchfield-Tshabalala turned to the High Court in Pretoria on Tuesday in a bid to interdict the Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, from going ahead with the swearing-in of the new members replacing them.

They argued that in terms of the EFF’s constitution, they have 20 days after expulsion to appeal.

Lucky Diliza Twala, who was suspended for three years from the party, but told by the disciplinary committee that this would be suspended for a year if he apologised, joined Tuesday’s application as his membership of the party was also on the line. Judge Eben Jordaan was told that Twala was in the same boat as the others as he didn’t apologise.

In a dramatic twist later in the day, Judge Jordaan, struck the matter from the roll on a technicality, finding that the application was an abuse of the court process. He found in favour of EFF leader Julius Malema, that the four had more than enough time to launch their application. Yet, they served the application on Malema at 7pm on Sunday, alerting him they would be in court on Tuesday morning.

This left the EFF leadership with hardly any time to respond to the allegations against it. The matter was enrolled as “extremely urgent”.

Judge Jordaan commented that the four should have known in February – when they were suspended – that “dark clouds were gathering”.

When advocate and party member Dali Mpofu announced on April 11 that they had been expelled following a disciplinary hearing, they should have acted – especially as the Speaker soon after informed them that they were no longer MPs.

“Why they waited until Sunday (April 19) to launch their application, I don’t know,” the judge said.

But it was a drama-filled day on Tuesday as the four at first obtained the order they wanted.

Judge Jordaan, after a short argument by the four’s advocate, Francois Botes SC, interdicted Mbete from going ahead with the swearing in of new members today.

This was done in the absence of Malema and his legal team.

The proceedings started off in the morning, with both teams agreeing in court to stand the matter down for a while in order for Malema’s advocate to obtain instructions from him as to whether he will give an undertaking to ask the Speaker to put the swearing-in on hold, pending an internal appeal by the four.

But when Malema’s team could not be located by 1pm, Botes asked for the order to be issued.

He said the respondents were playing “cat and mouse” with the applicants, as they had no idea whether the swearing-in was going ahead “as we speak”.

The judge agreed that if that was done, the “horse would have bolted”. He reluctantly agreed to the interim interdict, but said the legal team must be on alert if the respondents pitched after lunch – which they did. And thus the order was overturned.

 

It was argued on the EFF’s behalf that the four abused the process by only now “running” to court, while they had several days to do so. The judge was also told that the four had publicly declared they did not accept the EFF leadership and it was thus inconceivable that they would subject themselves to the internal appeal proceedings. The judge said he also wondered about this.

Botes still persisted that he wanted the interim interdict, jokingly saying that “a lot of water can still run in the sea, either red from blood or white from love”.

The judge quipped he hoped it remained blue.

Mngxitama said they would study the judge’s reasons for striking the matter off the roll and see whether there was still a way forward for them to try to return to their seats.

Pretoria News

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