Intervention by judiciary will help resolve logjam

IT IS NOW becoming increasingly clear that the paralysis that is gripping Parliament cannot be resolved by that body.

The opposition is tenaciously holding on to its position and so is the ANC. No “truce” brokered by anybody, less so Cyril Ramaphosa, can resolve this, as seen by its spectacular collapse.

Indeed, the very involvement of Ramaphosa is indicative of how these MPs have just run out of ideas to resolve this issue.

Ramaphosa is hardly an uninterested and objective party in this matter.

He is essentially a member of the executive and he absolutely has no superior power over anybody in Parliament to intervene and bring about order.

What is left is for the judiciary to decisively intervene, as this is its role to adjudicate between what is clearly an impasse between the executive and legislature on the one hand, and a legislature that is self-immolating.

Thus one of the parties must urgently lodge a case so that this logjam can be broken once and for all.

And there should be no dilly dallying about this – any court which hears this matter should do so expeditiously and dispense with all the usual delaying tactics.

For example, if the matter is before the Constitutional Court, those judges should sit day and night and not go home before they pronounce on what is an urgent matter that is spiralling seriously out of control.

Dr Thabisi Hoeane Senior lecturer, Head of International Politics Department of Political Sciences Unisa, Pretoria