If the ConCourt can oversee social grants, it can tell Parliament to do its job - Malema
Johannesburg - EFF leader Julius Malema has said if the Constitutional Court can oversee the issuing of social grants, it can also direct Parliament to do its job.
Malema submitted papers on Thursday asking the court to force Parliament to fulfil its constitutional duty to take action against President Jacob Zuma.
Malema delivered an application to the court for it to order the Speaker of Parliament to institute impeachment proceedings against Zuma.
The EFF's application cites the president's conduct with regard to the Nkandla scandal and Zuma's "lying to Parliament on numerous occasions".
Zuma unduly benefited from security upgrades to his home but refused to pay for non-security upgrades as per the former Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela's binding recommendations on the matter.
"If the Constitutional Court can supervise a parastatal like Sassa [the South African Social Security Agency] then it can supervise Parliament," Malema said outside the Constitutional Court.
Interference
He said the EFF had done everything in its power to ensure that Zuma was held to account but nothing had come of the party's efforts.
"We went to Parliament and tried everything within the rules, followed every little detail to get Parliament to discipline Zuma," he said.
Zuma was found by the court to have failed to uphold, protect and defend South Africa's Constitution in his handling of the Nkandla saga.
While the Constitutional Court can't order Parliament to fire the president as that would constitute interference by the judiciary in the matters of the legislative arm of the state, the court, in delivering judgment in the Sassa case earlier this month, said it was important to note that the intervention was not of its own choosing.
"Judges hold office to serve the people, just as members of the executive and legislature do. The underlying danger to us all is that when the institutions of government established under the Constitution are undermined, the fabric of our society comes under threat," Justice Johan Froneman said at the time.
He said the court needed to act in the Sassa debacle in order to prevent a potential catastrophe.
1 year anniversary for ruling
Said Malema: "Once a process is established by Parliament, Zuma is going to be called to answer to that Parliament and he would have to account for every little detail. That's when South Africans are going to hear why Zuma made untruthful statements like he had a bond and all those types of things in Parliament."
Malema lambasted Parliament for dragging other ministers to inquiries for their failures but doing nothing about the country's first citizen.
"Tomorrow the [ConCourt] judgment will be turning a year yet nothing has happened," he said.
In March 2016 the Constitutional Court ruled that Zuma failed to uphold the Constitution when he did not comply with Madonsela's remedial action regarding payment for the upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.
After the judgment, Zuma apologised for the Nkandla matter in a televised address to the nation.
