Parliament - Speaker Baleka Mbete has defended calling the riot police into the National Assembly as a a last resort after months of disruptive behaviour during which presiding officers “resisted” making use of the law which permits such a step.
Speaking at a media conference some 10 hours after police moved onto the floor of the House to remove an EFF MP who refused to obey an instruction from the presiding officer to leave, Mbete said Parliament could not continue to allow disruptions by those wanting “to push boundaries” and ended up “rubbishing” the institution - a veiled reference to previous public statements by the EFF.
“Yesterday showed what happens when you disregard the rules… when you go all out to disregard the rules...What the law allows us, finally happened yesterday,” said Mbete.
“No amount of trying to accommodate has helped. No amount of invoking rules has helped….Difference is not the issue.”
For the first time in South African parliamentary history, riot police got into action in the National Assembly at the close of Thursday’s almost 10-hour marathon parliamentary session.
Scuffles broke out when several DA MPs rose as EFF MP Ngwanamakwetle Mashabela was escorted out. This after she referred to President Jacob Zuma as a “thief” in what should have been an innocuous debate on the treaty establishing Grand Inga Hydro-Electrical project between South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
It was confirmed police were called in by Parliament's protection services after a request by the serjeant-at-arms.
However, no clarity emerged at Friday morning’s media briefing whether presiding officers were actually approached to authorise the police deployment, as the 2004 Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act stipulates.
Said deputy speaker Lechesa Tsenoli,: “We [presiding officers] were all in the House”.
The DA has opened a case against police after a special midnight caucus as four of its MPs were “assaulted”, the party said.
Parliamentary protection services head Zelda Hotzman on Friday morning confirmed two police officers were also hurt.
Thursday's parliamentary day - which also included an acrimonious debate on the parliamentary report clearing Zuma of involvement in the R215 million taxpayer-funded security upgrades at his Nkandla rural homestead - started badly after the DA and EFF filibustered three hours of motions following a controversial ruling by Mbete, which sought to limit the time for motions despite a different agreement in a previous multi-party programming committee meeting.
To shouts of “leave, leave, leave”, the two parties’s MPs demanded Mbete vacate her seat for this controversial ruling, which was only rescinded following an IFP face-saving proposal to refer it for discussion to another forum.
On Friday morning Mbete dismissed such calls for her to vacate the Speaker’s chair, and claims of bias as she also is the ANC national chairwoman.
Everyone was at Parliament as a member of a political party, she said.
The 2004 Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act in Clause 4 expressly states members of the security service may enter the parliamentary precinct to perform any policing function “ only with the permission and under the authority of the Speaker or Chairperson [of the National Council of Provinces]”.
Only in cases of “immediate danger to the life or safety of any person or damage to any person” does the act allow security services action without prior permission, but the presiding officers must be informed speedily afterwards.
Thursday’s police intervention followed riot police arriving at, but not actually entering, the National Assembly on August 21. That’s when the EFF “Pay Back the Money” fracas ultimately scuppered presidential question time.
In the immediate aftermath of that police action, Mbete said she had not called in the police. In a subsequent media briefing Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko confirmed he called the police, while at the same briefing other security cluster ministers indicated there would now be up-scaled security measures put in place for Parliament.
Political Bureau