DA confident the Constitution will be upheld in ICC matter

6 December 2016

The DA is confident that the North Gauteng High Court will come to the determination that Justice Minister, Mike Masutha, acting on behalf of the ANC government, made fatal errors in due process when he withdrew South Africa from the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In so doing, we contend, that Minister Masutha acted inconsistently with the Constitution by unlawfully bypassing Parliament. It is on that basis that we reassert that the decision to withdraw from the ICC was unconstitutional and is therefore invalid, irrational and ought to be set aside on that basis.

The government respondents have persisted in trying to advance the narrative that it was not their intention to usurp the functions Parliament.

This simply isn’t true but is consistent with the ANC’s growing tendency to disregard the Rule of Law and due process in order to protect the President and his friends of which Omar al-Bashir is one.

The very manner in which the Sudanese President was smuggled out of South Africa’s jurisdiction lends further credence to the State’s intention to circumvent Parliament and contravene the Rome Statute by which we are bound. An extrication of South Africa from the Statute should be done through an act of Parliament and not based on the government’s opinion of the ICC.

In any event, whether Minister Masutha acted intentionally or otherwise is irrelevant because the effect of the Minister’s actions violates the Constitution. The State must therefore dispense with the vexatious litigation at the taxpayer’s expense and observe due process.

This is not the first time such disregard of the Constitution has been displayed by the ANC government. Most notable was the President’s admission that he did not follow due process with regard to the Public Protector’s report into the Nkandla-gate debacle.

We are optimistic that the Court will find in favour of the Constitution and uphold the precepts of the Constitutional which all South Africans, including the Courts, are duty-bound to do.

Issued by James Selfe, Chairperson of the DA's Federal Executive, 6 December 2016