Hawks: Police Minister tries to bully Parliament into cleaning up his mess
29 January 2015
The DA will, this afternoon, write to the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police, François Beukman, requesting that he urge the committee to resist being bullied by the Police Minister into instituting a baseless and malicious probe into Anwa Dramat's fitness to be the Hawks boss.
This comes after the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, appeared before the Committee to answer for his unlawful conduct in suspending Dramat in contravention of a Constitutional Court order prohibiting him from doing so.
Additionally, the Minister wrote to the Committee requesting that it "take steps...to initiate a parliamentary process for the removal of the Head of DPCI on the grounds of misconduct and that he is not a fit and proper person to hold office." General Dramat has never been arrested, tried or convicted of any crime, yet is being accused of committing one.
The Police Minister has implicitly agreed with the DA that he, in fact, acted unlawfully by suspending Dramat. That can be the only logical conclusion drawn from his request that Parliament investigate Dramat's fitness.
If the Minister was confident that his conduct in this regard was lawful, as he has purported, he would not need Parliament to condone his decision ex post facto(after the fact). If General Dramat has committed a crime, he must be charged, not judged by a Parliamentary committee in lieu of a Court.
It is our belief that the Minister knew, full well, that he had no authority to suspend Dramat without Parliament first instituting an investigation into his alleged ‘misconduct' as per the Constitutional Court order. Nhleko deliberately circumvented Parliament and suspended Dramat anyway in flagrant contravention of a Constitutional Court ruling.
Minister Nhleko now realises that the law is not on his side and has attempted to bully Parliament into cleaning up his mess by forcing it to legitimise his illegal conduct. This is a complete inversion and abuse of due process by the Minister who now, conveniently wants to involve Parliament to clean up what he and his masters at Luthuli House have created.
The Committee was expected to make a decision on this matter at 14:00 this afternoon. However, it is now expected to make its decision in response to the Minister's request at 09:00 tomorrow morning after having properly applied its collective mind to all the relevant facts at its disposal.
Tomorrow the Portfolio Committee and Chairperson must resist the Minister's bald-faced attempts to abuse Parliament for his own insidious political ends.
This is the latest brazen attempt by the ANC in government to bend independent institutions towards protecting Number 1 and those close to him. The NPA, the Hawks, SARS and now Parliament.
Parliament cannot allow this to happen and must resist the Minister's blatant attempts to put Parliament in his back pocket to use as his own personal instrument to defend President Zuma and those in his close circle.
Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minister of Police, January 29 2015
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