Johannesburg: South Africa's Constitutional court ordered Parliament to set rules related to the potential dismissal of the country's President Jacob Zuma after the legislature failed to hold him accountable for using public money to remodel his private residence. South Africa’s highest court has ruled that the parliament failed to hold Zuma to account in a scandal over state-funded upgrades to his country residence, fuelling opposition calls for him to be impeached.
Frustrated by setbacks in the national assembly, the leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters and other small opposition parties went to court as part of their campaign to impeach Zuma before a general election in 2019. Last year, the court found that Zuma had violated the constitution when he refused to pay back £11million public money spent to upgrade to his rural home at Nkandla, in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
The court cited section 89 of South Africa’s constitution, which allows for the president to be removed for serious misconduct, or violation of the constitution or law, if two thirds of the members of the national assembly are in agreement. “We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account … The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office,” judge Chris Jafta said, handing down the judgment, which was supported by a majority of the court.
“Properly interpreted, section 89 implicitly imposes an obligation on the assembly to make rules specially tailored for the removal of the president from office. By omitting to include such rules, the assembly has failed to fulfil this obligation.”
Speaker blamed
Opposition parties blamed Baleka Mbete, the speaker of the national assembly, for parliament’s failures on Nkandla. Mbete was accused of personally trying to protect Zuma over the upgrades after she said: “In the African tradition, you don’t interfere with a man’s kraal (cattle enclosure).”
The ruling will probably trigger an investigation into the grounds for impeaching Zuma, who has faced many calls for his resignation in the past few years, particularly over his relationship with the Guptas, a powerful family of wealthy businessmen alleged to have influenced his decision-making. The president and the Guptas both deny any wrongdoing.
Parliament asked to set rules for Zuma's impeachment
Johannesburg: South Africa's Constitutional court ordered Parliament to set rules related to the potential dismissal of the country's President Jacob Zuma after the legislature failed to hold him accountable for using public money to remodel his private residence. The court ruled that Parliament failed to determine whether Zuma had violated Article 89 of the Constitution and therefore to establish rules to regulate his impeachment, Efe news agency reported.
Article 89 states that a dismissal procedure should begin when a serious violation of the Constitution or the law takes place. Opposition parties had filed a lawsuit before the court in September, arguing that Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete should have established a Commission to start the dismissal procedure after a public prosecutor accused Zuma of violating the Constitution.
However, the court considered that some actions had been taken against Zuma, as no-confidence motions were carried out in light of the scandal, though he emerged from them victorious.
