Parliament’s sub-committee on Rules is to recommend that the composition of a committee of MPs to decide on the impeachment of the President – must be left to the discretion of the Speaker.
The Constitutional Court ruled in December last year that the National Assembly had failed to put in place proper rules for the impeachment of the President of the country and directed Parliament to remedy this.
The court has ordered it to do so as matter of urgency. The court found that Parliament failed to put mechanisms in place to hold former President Jacob Zuma accountable for the Nkandla debacle. Eight months down the line, the sub-rules committee is finalising the rules in terms of Section 89 of the Constitution.
Chairperson of the sub-committee on rules, Richard Mdakane, says the current proportional representation of parties in Parliament on a committee will not make sense for the future.
“We are drafting rules for future generations. The composition will change, I think when we wrote the options, we were looking at the current situation. No-one knows whether these parties sighted here will be back in 2019, therefore it’s better that Speaker decides this thing.”
The committee is set to recommend a process to the Rules Committee next week.
“We can’t work on proportion. There’s got to be some kind of fairness because it affects the country at the end of the day,” says Narend Singh from Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
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