Parties agree on how to remove protector
The ANC and DA have agreed on the broad outline of a process for removing the head of a Chapter Nine institution, including the public protector.
The ANC and DA have agreed on the broad outline of a process for removing the head of a chapter nine institution, including the public protector.
A subcommittee of parliament’s rules committee is drawing up rules for the removal of such people, a move prompted by the DA’s parliamentary bid to have public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane removed on the grounds of incompetence.
However, before an inquiry into this request can take place, parliament has to draw up rules for the removal of leaders and office bearers of chapter nine institutions, in the same way it had to draw up rules for the removal of a president when there was an attempt to impeach former president Jacob Zuma.
The subcommittee, which met on Friday, has two sets of proposals before it, one by DA chief whip John Steenhuisen and the other by the parliament’s legal services presented by the secretary of the National Assembly, Masibulele Xaso.
Steenhuisen emphasised that it should not be an easy process to remove the head of chapter nine institutions as the nature of their work could bring them into conflict with political parties and the executive. “Their independence should be jealously protected,” he said.
The DA and ANC agreed that the bid for removal should be in the form of a substantive motion submitted to the National Assembly. ANC subcommittee member Richard Dyantyi and Steenhuisen agreed that the speaker of the National Assembly should be empowered to appoint a panel of experts to assess whether there was prima facie evidence to substantiate a probe into the proposed removal.
Xasa said the inquiry by the experts must be fact-based and rely on legal arguments. Affected parties must be allowed to make representations to the committee conducting the inquiry.
The panel would report to the speaker, who would take the matter to the National Assembly, which could investigate it.
In terms of the constitution, a decision to remove the person would have to be supported by a two-thirds majority of National Assembly members when it concerns the public protector or auditor-general, or with a simple majority when it concerns an ordinary member of a chapter nine institution.
Office bearers in the institutions supporting constitutional democracy — the public protector, the auditor-general, the SA Human Rights Commission, the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, the Commission for Gender Equality and the Electoral Commission — can be removed from office only on the grounds of misconduct, incapacity or incompetence.