Riot police are never welcome in Parliament

25 January 2015

The DA strongly rejects today's comments by the Chief Whip of the ANC, Stone Sizani, proposing that riot police can and will be used at any time to safeguard the Parliamentary chamber.

Our position on this issue has been consistently clear - police are never welcome in the Parliamentary chamber. 

Sending the police in to quell political dissent is a fundamental violation of the Constitution, which dictates the separation of executive and legislative powers, and can never be justified.

It is the parliamentary security services, not the police that must be empowered to deal with any issues in the chamber, as they report to the Speaker and to Parliament as an institution. It was the incursion by the police and the violence that followed which caused the massive degeneration in the chamber the last time, and we must never go down that road again. Police presence and physical violence have no place in Parliament. 

Furthermore, it appears Sizani is suffering from a bout of amnesia as he claims that Baleka Mbete was elected unopposed as Speaker. This is simply untrue, as the DA fielded Nosimo Balindlela as a speaker candidate precisely because we knew that Mbete was being deployed by Luthuli house to protect Zuma at all costs. 

The very nature of Parliament as an institution is to facilitate robust debate and ensure executive accountability. Any attempt by the ruling party or the Speaker to supress this by using riot police can never be tolerated. 

Statement issued by John Steenhuisen MP, Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance, January 25 2015

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