High Court reserves judgment in DA’s Tshwane case

The High Court in Pretoria has reserved judgment in the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) urgent application to halt the removal of Tshwane Executive Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa and Speaker Katlego Mathebe. This after all parties’ legal representatives concluded their arguments.

African National Congress (ANC) Tshwane region’s Chairperson Kgoshi Maepa says his party has a watertight case.

“The Democratic Alliance made two applications with two different people. In urgent court, you can’t change the defendant of the affidavit. The affidavit was changed. Miss Greazanne Boshc says that she was in council. Mr Van Heever, the second defendant of the DA says Miss Bosch was not in the council chamber. So, we have proved that point. We have given it to the court, that now the founding affidavit is a hearsay and on hearsay, on urgent court, really, all people who understand jurisprudence in this country will explain that there is no second thought about urgency,” explains Maepa.

The Economic Freedom Fighter’s (EFF) Regional Chairperson MoAfrika Mabogwana also believes that the court will rule in their favour.

“We’ve put our arguments very clear particularly in terms of what has transpired in council. There is a very important rule, which is rule Number 14, which the judge said he’s going to give it enough attention, which says that you can revoke any decisions of the council at any time during the proceedings of the meeting, which is basically what we’ve done as the EFF, to revoke the decision which said Councillor Zweli must be an Acting Speaker. So we’ve removed it in terms of the rules,” says Mabogwana.

Meanwhile, the DA believes the High Court in Pretoria will rule in its favour as the EFF and ANC flouted procedures when they removed Mokgalapa and Mathebe.

DA Tshwane Chairperson Abel Tau says the ANC and the EFF want to seize power in the capital city illegally.

“If they wanted to vote us out and they believed in the majority that they believe they have they should have allowed the acting speaker to sit on the podium, raise a hand and basically go on. I mean counsel here did show that Rule 14 is incorrectly applied because what they are trying to do is to divert to the real issues,” says Tau.