Cape Town - The ATM dragged Parliament to through an application seeking to review, set aside and declare invalid National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula’s instruction for a secret ballot in the failed impeachment vote and the actual parliamentary proceedings on December 13.
In the lead-up to the parliamentary sitting on December 13, Mapisa-Nqakula had denied opposition MPs’ request that a secret ballot be held in deciding whether President Cyril Ramaphosa should face an impeachment inquiry over the Phala Phala saga.
Parliament had assembled a panel to look into whether Ramaphosa had an impeachable case to answer to following a criminal case opened in June last year by former spy boss Arthur Fraser, who fingered Ramaphosa in money laundering, torture and kidnapping charges.
Before the December vote, Mapisa-Nqakula announced her decision to turn down the request for the reconsideration of her decision to rule that she wouldn’t be allowing a secret ballot.
In the December 13 sitting, the ANC used its majority to shield Ramaphosa from impeachment, throwing him the proverbial get-out-of-jail-free card, as 148 MPs voted “yes”, 214 “no”, and two abstained from voting for the adoption of the Phala Phala report.
The ATM, represented by Anton Katz SC, asked a full Bench to declare the proceedings on the adoption of the Phala Phala report as invalid and the party argued that a secret ballot would have possibly led to Ramaphosa’s impeachment.
The ATM also prayed for costs against respondents that will oppose the application.
Katz told the court it was problematic that the more than 400 MPs were subject to voting along party lines, and not with the Constitution.
Judge Daniel Thulare asked Katz whether it would be premature for the conclusion that the ANC disciplines its members if they didn’t toe the party line, to which Katz responded by saying: “It’s only the threat of discipline that counts.”
In her answering affidavit, MapisaNqakula said the ATM’s urgent application sought “sweeping relief”, which would “intrude into the heartland of parliamentary authority”.
On reaching her decision on whether the vote would be secret or public, she said she had been “impartial”, considered whether the voting procedure would have allowed MPs to vote with their conscience, whether they would be able to advance the interests of their voters, and if the atmosphere was “toxified”.
Mapisa-Nqakula argued that, according to her “independent assessment”, a secret ballot “threatened to increase the risk of corruption”, of buying members of the National Assembly “to vote without regard to the interests of the people they represent as they would be shielded from accountability for their voting choices”.
EFF supporters milled about and sang outside Parliament, with police looking on from a stone’s throw away.
Court proceedings were adjourned until today.
soyiso.maliti@inl.co.za