Malema’s apartheid act challenge deferred
EFF leader Julius Malema has been ordered to file a proper notice before the high court can hear his constitutional challenge that the State used apartheid legislation to charge him for allegedly inciting land grabs.
Yesterday, the full bench of the North Gauteng High Court refused to hear his application after it emerged that his instructing attorney had failed to serve the high court’s registrar with a proper notice to challenge the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956.
Malema’s legal troubles began in October 2016 when the National Prosecuting Authority charged him with incitement under the Act for comments he made in Bloemfontein, Free State, during his party’s elective conference in 2014.
At that conference, Malema told EFF supporters: “We are going to occupy unoccupied land because we need the land… ”
Civil society group AfriForum laid criminal charges at the time but a charge was preferred against Malema more than two years later.
The second charge of incitement followed comments he made in June 2016 while addressing his supporters in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal, in which he reportedly said: “These whites found us here and not one of them came with a piece of land in their pockets.”
Malema was officially charged with the offence on November 2016 in the Newcastle Magistrate’s Court.
The same month, he filed a notice in the North Gauteng High Court to challenge the Riotous Assemblies Act, arguing that the law was enacted during the apartheid era and was not applicable after 1994 in a democratic South Africa. The court in May this year asked Malema and his legal team to file a proper notice in accordance with Rule 16(A)1(a).
According to the requirements of the rule, any person or entity challenging a clause in the Constitution should serve the court’s registrar with the notice, on time, and clearly detailing the contents of the legal challenge against any act.
Due to the apparent failure on the side of Malema’s attorneys to meet the requirements of the rules, the full bench then ordered the EFF leader to file such a notice within five days of the court’s decision.
The matter was postponed to December 12 for a hearing.