The High Court in Cape Town is expected to rule on Friday whether Patricia de Lille‘s case against the Democratic Alliance should be treated as urgent.
The GOOD Party leader wants the court to order the DA to publicly apologise to her for telling voters she was fired from the party when in fact she had resigned in 2018.
The DA has defied a previous order by the IEC for it to apologise to De Lille.
De Lille says, in court papers, that she found out on the 28 of February that the DA was running a telemarketing campaign that she had been fired by the DA. She says this is a lie as she resigned on the 3 of August 2018.
De Lille asked her lawyers to stop the DA campaign, but their letter was ignored.
De Lille’s Lawyer Deidre Kuservitsky says, “What we are saying is that the applicant should not be punished for following the processes that is set out in the electoral act, and the code of conduct and its rules.”
The DA’s lawyers are asking the court to dismiss the case with costs or not consider it as urgent.
De Lille says her good name has been dragged through the mud by the DA.
“The damage that it’s doing to my name and my integrity … they are lying, spreading misinformation and I want a public apology. They should be phoning each and everyone of the voters that they phoned and admit that they have spread lies.”
Judge Robert Martin provisionally postponed the matter on Wednesday due to his workload.
Meanwhile, the DA has launched an application to review the IEC’s earlier decision forcing it to apologise. The party says it feels the IEC acted beyond its mandate in making the ruling.
The DA dismissed De Lille’s court action as a publicity stunt.
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