WHAT EXACTLY IS A MOTION OF NO-CONFIDENCE; HOW DID IT ORIGINATE?

THE DA has requested a parliamentary motion of no-confidence in President Jacob Zuma to take place with a secret ballot. Speaker Baleka Mbete has declared that the rules of Parliament do not provide for such a ballot, so the Constitutional Court has been approached to decide whether a secret ballot should take place. What exactly is a motion of noconfidence?

The practice of a motion of no-confidence has its origin in the Westminster system. The first successful motion of no-confidence in British parliamentary history occurred in 1782 at the end of the American Revolution, when as a result of the defeat of the British forces commanded by Lord Cornwallis at the battle of Yorktown, Parliament at Westminster voted that it “no longer has confidence in the present ministers”, which was preceded by, according to Adams, Constitutional History of England, “many motions equivalent to a want of confidence carried against the ministry, before the king (George III) would yield, and at that moment only because Lord North (Prime Minister) peremptory resigned…”

This did not, however, create a constitutional convention that a government defeated by a vote of no-confidence requires the dissolution of parliament and a general election. However, attempts by British prime minister Robert Peel to govern in the absence of a parliamentary majority were abortive, and by the middle of the 19th century, the convention had been established that a successful motion of no-confidence was sufficient to topple a government, bring about the dissolution of Parliament and a general election.

In the Union of South Africa, in the House of Assembly, the Hertzog ministry was defeated in 1939, involving the historic motion for participation in World War 2. Parliament decided on “an immediate declaration of war on Germany by 80 votes to 67, and General Hertzog, the prime minister, having been refused a dissolution by the governor-general, Sir Patrick Duncan, resigned”.

* George Devenish is an emeritus professor at UKZN and one of the scholars that assisted in drafting the interim constitution