EFF LEADER’S EJECTION FROM THE HOUSE

9 September 2015

The Office of the ANC Chief Whip welcomes the ruling by the National Assembly House Chairperson Grace Borotho to throw EFF leader Julius Malema out of the House following his refusal to abide by her ruling. Malema was ruled out of order for his un-parliamentary utterances referring to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa as a “murderer”.

He refused to obey the presiding officer’s order to withdraw the un-parliamentary utterances and the subsequent instruction to leave the House. In terms of the new rules, Malema is automatically suspended from the House, and may not enter the precinct of Parliament, for a period of five working days.

 In terms of the rules of Parliament and the Constitutionally-enshrined freedom of speech, parliamentarians may not arbitrarily make such defamatory allegations of criminal nature without following a proper parliamentary process.

Such allegations cannot be made except through a substantive motion - which must entail the nature of the allegations and legal evidence to substantiate the claim. In the absence of any substantive proof to back up his allegations, Malema’s pronouncements were malicious, derogatory and slanderous. Such conduct, which undermines the decorum of Parliament and makes utter mockery of the parliamentary multiparty discourse, can no longer be tolerated.  

Parliament is a serious and dignified institution where the superiority of the views wins debates, not insults, gimmicks and disparaging allegations. Hooliganism creeps in whenever rules governing the business of the House are perpetually undermined with impunity. For this reason, all parties agreed that such conduct must be rooted out through fair and just enforcement of the rules.

We laud the presiding officer for strictly following the new tightened rules of the House and ensuring that the business of the institution is not unduly disrupted by the conduct of Malema and his party – who are notorious for anarchy and chaos. 

Statement issued by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip, September 9 2015