NATIONAL ASSEMBLY RULES SUBCOMMITTEE TO DELIBERATE ON PROCEDURE FOR IMPLEMENTING SECTION 89(1) OF THE CONSTITUTION

Parliament, Sunday 7 January 2018 – Parliament’s National Assembly Subcommittee on Review of Rules is scheduled, on Wednesday 10 and Thursday 11 January, to deliberate on a draft procedure for implementing section 89(1) of the Constitution: Removal of President.

This follows the Constitutional Court’s judgment handed down on 29 December 2017 that the National Assembly had failed to put in place proper rules regulating a procedure for section 89(1) of the Constitution. The Constitutional Court ordered the National Assembly to make such rules without delay to initiate a process under section 89(1), in terms of the newly developed rules.

In keeping with the Assembly’s commitment to comply fully with the Constitutional Court’s majority judgment, Members of Parliament serving on the National Assembly Rules Subcommittee have been notified of the forthcoming meetings and supplied with documents to be considered there.

The documents include a draft procedure drawn up in April 2016, but not finalised, and a comparative study, compiled in 2015, about impeachment proceedings of seven other Parliaments on the removal of a Head of State.

The draft procedure, once finalised by the Subcommittee, would need to be adopted by the National Assembly as part of the Assembly’s rules.

Statement issued by Parliament, 7 January 2018