Speech by Dr Annelie Lotriet MP DA Representative on the Powers and Privileges Committee, during the debate on the consideration of the report of the PPC, National Assembly, Parliament, Cape Town, November 27 2014
The DA rejects the Report by the PPC
On 21 August, President Jacob Zuma came to Parliament to answer questions. As you all know, the question session broke down, as the President was not able to answer all questions fully.
It is the DA's considered opinion that the question session broke down for three intertwined reasons:
1) President Zuma failed to give appropriate answers to any of the questions put to him. He shamelessly evaded answering honourable Maimane's question on the day, in addition to evading honourable Malema's question.
2) The Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, failed to maintain order in the House, and in fact contributed to the breakdown of order in the House by punishing all EFF members as a collective, instead of individual members involved in the disruption. She furthermore lost control of her own emotions and allowed them to overtake her decision-making abilities. The Speaker herself has admitted that she "lost it" on the 21st of August.
3) The EFF's behaviour was not in line with the rules of Parliament, and contributed to the eventual collapse of the question session.
The DA entered the Powers and Privileges Committee with the honest intention to investigate all three contributing factors, and to apportion responsibility fairly and in accordance with the appropriate Parliamentary processes.
Unfortunately, the ANC did not allow a fair process to be followed in this committee.
It is clear now that the ANC in committee had a particular pre-determined objective and did not allow a thorough investigation which allowed all parties represented on the committee to present their opinions.
We have therefore come to the conclusion that the report produced by the Powers and Privileges committee is fundamentally flawed and procedurally compromised. We cannot support and do not recognise its legitimacy. It is not a product of a fair investigation.
Honourable members, it must be noted that this was the first time since 1994 that the Powers and Privileges Committee had to deal with a matter referred to it and it was also the first time that the Schedule in the Rules had to be applied. We are therefore setting important precedents for internal Parliamentary investigations.
Our approach was thus not linked to who and which party members appeared before the Committee, but to ensure that there was procedural fairness and that the process would be reasonable.
Unfortunately the ANC did not share the same approach. Every attempt was made by the ANC to protect the President and the Speaker from investigation or responsibility for what happened. It is clear that the ANC came to the committee with the predetermined view of focusing all responsibility on the EFF. This is not fair, nor an accurate reflection of what happened on the 21st of August and therefore it should not be supported by the House.
The following facts make it clear that this investigation was flawed, and purposefully manipulated to favour the ANC at the expense of the EFF:
The submission of the Leader of the EFF was disregarded by the committee and only considered after all findings were finalised. Honourable Malema raised a number of pertinent points that should have been addressed during the investigation. This submission referred to important matters relating to natural justice and procedural fairness as required by the Powers and Privileges Act, and its content was never addressed.
No formal legal opinion was produced to explain how a majority-ANC committee could reasonably constitute an investigation that was free of ‘reasonable apprehension of bias'. Here we had a situation where the person who referred the complaint to the Committee was a member of the majority party and the majority of the members of the Committee were members of the majority party. This clearly points to potential of a reasonable apprehension of bias.
Added to this: if there is a reasonable apprehension or suspicion that the decision maker has prejudged the matter, the bias rule is breached. It was clear from the press conference held after an ANC NEC meeting that the expectation was expressed that members of the EFF should be dealt with harshly. Again an indication of prejudgement.
It would appear that the Parliamentary Legal advisors were involved in drafting the charges against the EFF and also provided advice to the Committee during the investigation. This is a clear conflict of interest.
The ANC majority refused to call the Speaker as a witness. The fact that the Speaker was not called as a witness caused serious lacunae in the evidence presented. The Speaker was central to the whole process and the events that transpired on 21 August 2014. She should in fact have been the main witness. The fact that she did not testify, made it impossible to determine why she acted/reacted in the way she did.
We could not as certain what her perception of ‘grave disorder' and ‘grossly disorderly' is. We could not enquire from her in terms of what factors she exercises her discretion to recognise a member to speak. Although the Secretary to the NA testified on what happened on the day, he could not testify to the reasoning of the Speaker and why she took certain decisions.
It was also unfortunate that the two ministers called, did not appear before the Committee to testify, but submitted affidavits. The Committee thus also did not have the opportunity to question the ministers on the content of the affidavits and furthermore these affidavits were only received after the Initiator had presented his closing arguments. Again a problem in terms of due process.
The members of the majority party did not take any mitigating factors into consideration. The context of the events, the contributing factors, the actions of the different role players were totally ignored. Nowhere is recognition given of the frustration of opposition parties because of poor and insufficient answers given by members of the executive, and specifically the President on the day. The findings and penalties proposed were indeed done on a basis void of any context.
Honourable members, we must indeed be mindful that this was the first such investigation by this committee in the Democratic Parliament. We cannot allow a precedent to be set that this committee can be used to settle political scores.
The DA therefore rejects this report and calls on the House to vote it down.
But furthermore, we cannot tolerate the continued abusing of this committee to serve political interests. In the coming Parliamentary term, we will be submitting a serious of legislative proposals to reform this committee to ensure it functions fairly in future.
I thank you.
Issued by the DA, November 27 2014
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