ANC’s lawyers looking into DA’s cadre deployment court challenge – Mabe

The African National Congress (ANC) says it is consulting with its legal team following a court challenge against the governing party’s deployment policy.

Last Friday, the Democratic Alliance (DA) filed its papers at the Pretoria High Court, asking for an order to declare cadre deployment unconstitutional and illegal.

The DA has long argued that cadre deployment was inconsistent with the country’s constitution and the Public Service Act.

The opposition party’s leader John Steenhuisen accused the ANC of using its deployment committee to capture the state, extract public resources through corruption, and evade accountability.

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In response to the litigation, the ANC said it was concerning that the opposition would try to take a policy of the governing party to court.

“It’s worrisome that the Democratic Alliance or any other party would want to take an internal policy of the ANC to court. 

“Imagine us now coming out and saying that we are taking the constitution of the Democratic Alliance or any of their policies,” ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe told SABC News on Friday.

Mabe indicated that the ANC’s legal department is looking in the matter.

“Well, without saying much, because when a matter is in court, it is sub-judice in that way. Our legal division has already ceased this matter. The ANC will be able to issue a more elaborate statement on its own position,” he said.

Committee minutes

The DA had previously filed an application under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to obtain the deployment committee minutes, which were made public earlier this year by the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture.

The minutes, from 2018 to 2021, appear to show how the ANC ran a parallel deployment process to fill certain positions at several government departments, agencies and the boards of SOEs.

According to the minutes from a meeting held on 22 March 2019, the committee preselected the appointment of judges for vacant posts in the judiciary.

The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) at the time had two vacant positions, while the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) had one.

READ MORE: ANC’s cadre deployment policy needs to go

President Cyril Ramaphosa defended the ANC’s policy of deployment of its members into the public service during his testimony, arguing the policy was an important part of implementing the ANC’s mandate.

The president also said the deployment committee did not keep records of its meetings from 2012 to 2017.

At the time, Ramaphosa informed the State Capture Commission that he did not recall minutes being taken during the meetings, when he chaired the committee during his tenure as South Africa’s deputy president.

It also emerged that the ANC had intended to obtain an interdict against the the commission, chaired by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, from releasing the ruling party’s deployment committee minutes.