Ruling on Zuma impeachment today
THE Constitutional Court will rule today on whether parliament must start proceedings to impeach President Jacob Zuma‚ EFF spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi said.
In September‚ the EFF‚ DA and UDM asked the court to step in and order parliamentary speaker Baleka Mbete to set up a committee to start impeachment proceedings.
This was because Zuma had violated the constitution by spending taxpayers’ money to upgrade his private Nkandla home.
The EFF’s advocate, Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, argued that Mbete had failed in her duty to scrutinise Zuma’s conduct and that she had also frustrated political parties’ bids to do so.
The case centred on whether Mbete and members of parliament had followed all the rules and proceedings to make Zuma account for his violation of the constitution.
However‚ Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told Ngcukaitobi that the case was not about parliamentary procedures‚ but merely a bid to get rid of Zuma.
“Your client [EFF] wants to have the president removed from office,” he said.
The political parties argued that they wanted Zuma to be forced to appear before a parliamentary hearing to explain his role in the Nkandla saga.
But Mogoeng was incredulous that Zuma would say anything different from what he had said in the 27 question-and-answer sessions on Nkandla in parliament.
“We know what Zuma thinks, don’t we?” Mogoeng said.
During the hearing‚ the judges grilled the advocates on why the court should intervene in parliamentary procedures.
South Africa is a constitutional democracy, meaning the courts‚ parliament and the executive all keep each other’s powers in check‚ but do not do each other’s jobs.
Mogoeng and many judges expressed discomfort with the court doing parliament’s job by stepping in and telling Mbete how to hold Zuma accountable.
The hearing ran for almost 10 hours‚ double the usual length of a constitutional case‚ with Mogoeng allowing all the advocates extra time to argue their points and answer questions.