ANC, DA fail to break Zuma no-conf idence vote impasse

LAWYERS acting for the ANC say they have been approached by the DA with an offer to drop the case it brought before the Constitutional Court over the scheduling of “motions of no confidence” in parliament.

The DA’s legal team confirmed speaking to the ANC about the matter but said it was untrue that the party had offered to drop the court challenge.

Attorney Barnabas Xulu, who represents the ANC caucus, said he was approached by the DA’s legal team with

If the matter doesn t have to go to court, the DA wanted the ANC to settle our costs

an offer to withdraw the case and find a solution to the impasse in parliament. Xulu said the two parties failed to reach an agreement when the ANC demanded that the DA pay its legal costs as part of an out-of-court settlement.

“That is correct. They approached me. My response was ‘ you pay our legal costs, we will walk away’, but they couldn’t agree to that,” Xulu said.

But Mervyn Smith, who represents DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, said Xulu’s version of what happened was incorrect. Smith said the issue of costs had been discussed more than a week ago following National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu’s efforts to get the two parties to reach an agreement on rules relating to the scheduling of motions of no confidence before Friday’s arguments in court.

He insisted it was the DA that had demanded that the ANC foot all the legal costs if an out-of-court settlement was reached. “In other words, if the rule is settled and the matter doesn’t have to go to court, we wanted them to settle our costs, not the other way round.”

Sisulu ’ s spokesman, Luzuko Jacobs, said the speaker had used meetings of the joint rules committee to try to get the parties to resolve the impasse.

Mazibuko launched the court challenge after last year’s unsuccessful bid in the Cape High Court to force Sisulu to schedule an urgent debate on the motion of no confidence in President Jacob Zuma.

In the Constitutional Court on Friday, the ANC argued that the court should stay out of its battle with the DA. “Courts should [be] loath to tell parliament when to regard a motion as urgent and requiring urgent scheduling and vote,” it said in court papers.

But the DA countered this by saying MPs had a right to introduce a motion of no confidence, have it debated within a reasonable time frame and that it not be subjected to any political interference.

The court reserved judgment.