Cape Town - The Parliamentary ad-hoc committee investigating the SABC board’s fitness to hold office has decided to continue with proceedings despite an application by the lone board chairman, Professor Mbulaheni Maguvhe, to appeal a court ruling giving it the go ahead.
The committee chairperson, Vincent Smith, began proceedings on Wednesday morning by informing members that they had received a notice of appeal lodged with the Western Cape High Court to set aside Judge Siraj Desai’s ruling.
This after Desai dismissed Maguvhe’s urgent application to interdict the committee. Maguvhe’s legal representatives had argued that committee members would go into hearings with “biased opinions” that had already found him guilty.
The committee was set up by Parliament to investigate the public broadcaster’s board and to establish whether to dismiss it, even when it was only left with one member in Maguvhe, accused of playing delaying tactics by angry committee members.
The Democratic Alliance’s Phumzile van Damme argued that proceedings should not be halted as the latest court action was a ploy to further delay hearings.
“It is absolutely true as Mr Maguvhe seeks to delay this process, this matter is very urgent and we cannot wait for the process,” she argued.
Other members also agreed that because there was no court order presented to the committee instructing them not to proceed, there was no reason to further delay the process.
After a 30 minute break, Smith informed members that after consulting with their legal representation a decision had been made to continue.
“As it stands there is no legal document preventing this committee from doing its job, Parliament will not be deterred from doing what is set out to do so we will continue today as scheduled,” he said.
Smith also added that they had instructed their lawyers to approach the Constitutional Court, if necessary, to obtain documents they had requested from the SABC.
The issue of none submission of documents, which include the management’s report, was none negotiable, he said.