Parliament welcomes Western Cape High Court ruling on EFF application
11 June 2024
Parliament welcomes the Western Cape High Court judgement dismissing with costs the Economic Freedom Fighters’ (EFF) application to have the conduct of Parliament during the 2015 and 2017 State of the Nation Address (SONA) declared unconstitutional.
The application was based on the order by the Presiding Officers (Speaker of the National Assembly and the Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces) for certainEFF members to be ejected from the House following their continuous disruptions through spurious points of order.
The EFF sought an order declaring that Parliament acted unconstitutionally by ordering the EFF members to be ejected, as this allegedly resulted in the Parliamentary Protection Services using unreasonable force, violence and aggression when removing members from the House.Consequently, the EFF also sought constitutional damages, contingent upon the granting of the declaratory order sought.
In the application, the EFF contended that the Presiding Officers used their powers to frustrate Members of Parliament who were genuinely exercising their right to freedom of speech and fulfilling their obligations in terms of the Constitution and the law. Parliament refuted these allegationsstating that the EFF members, like any other Members of Parliament, enjoy the equal right to freedom of expression, and that it was undemocratic for the EFF members to act in a manner which contravened the parliamentary rules by deliberately attempting to collapse SONA.