Concourt: Disclose party funders
THE Presidency has been ordered to change the Executive Ethics Code within 12 months, which would mean executive members will now have to disclose funds received for internal party campaigns.
This after the Constitutional Court yesterday affirmed a ruling by the North Gauteng High Court that the code was unconstitutional.
The landmark ruling follows an application by the AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, which challenged the validity of the code.
The court application followed the release of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s report on July 19, 2019 titled: “Report on an investigation into a violation of the Executive Ethics Code through an improper relationship between President Ramaphosa and African Global Operation (AGO), formerly known as Bosasa.”
One of the findings of the public protector was that the president had breached his duties under the code, in that, among other things, he had failed to disclose donations that had been made to an internal party-political campaign (the CR17 campaign) that supported his election as president of the ANC in December 2017.
Ramaphosa launched an application in the high court to review it.
AmaBhungane then brought a constitutional challenge to the code by way of a conditional counter-application through an application to intervene in the review proceedings between the president and the public protector.
The application was conditional on the interpretation that the high court would give the relevant provisions of the code, but more particularly, on whether the code required members to make disclosure of donations made to internal party-political campaigns.
In its conditional application, AmaBhungane contended that, to the extent that the code did not require Cabinet members, deputy members and members of the executive council to disclose donations made to them for their benefit for political party positions, the code was unconstitutional.
The ConCourt said the ruling could not be made retroactively – meaning Ramaphosa did not have to reveal his CR17 funders. He was however ordered to pay AmaBhungane’s legal costs.
The code was suspended for 12 months to allow Ramaphosa time to remedy the defect.