Mbethe ‘over eager’ to call security services – expert
JOBURG - South African constitutional law scholar, Pierre de Vos, believes that National Assembly Speaker, Baleka Mbethe, employed ‘kragdadigheid [forceful] tactics’ to call in the security services to have the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) members removed from Parliament during the State of the Nation Address.
De Vos was referring to the incident when EFF members disrupted president Jacob Zuma when he addressed the house. De Vos, who is Claude Leon Foundation chairperson in constitutional governance at the University of Cape Town, said it seemed like a ‘taught a lesson’.
He said she was using the police to teach political opponents a lesson, and seemed in conflict with the spirit of a constitutional democracy.
Watch EFF members get removed from SONA 2015
“Allowing the EFF to go ahead, suspending the proceedings and demonstrating to all voters that the EFF was not prepared to act in terms of the rules, would in my opinion have been the constitutionally desirable and politically the most astute thing to do.”
De Vos said Section 4(2) of the Powers, Privileges and Immunities of Parliaments and Provincial Legislatures Act states, “When there is immediate danger to the life or safety of any person or damage to any property, members of the security services may, without obtaining such permission, enter upon and take action in the precincts in so far as it is necessary to avert that danger. Any such action must as soon as possible be reported to the speaker and the chairperson.”
He stated that as there was no immediate danger to the life or safety of any person or damage to any property, the section did not apply. “However, Section 11 of the Act states, “A person who creates or takes part in any disturbance in the precincts while Parliament or a house or committee is meeting, may be arrested and removed from the precincts, on the order of the speaker or the chairperson or a person designated by the speaker or chairperson, by a staff member or a member of the security services,” De Vos stated.
“If the speaker had been a wiser person and had suspended proceedings and had said we only proceed once Julius and Floyd leaves – while South Africans wait impatiently for the SONA to proceed, would have turned many voters against the EFF. In the end, it’s voters and not the speaker or security forces who are the ultimate check on the MPs.”
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