ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu.
The African National Congress (ANC) on Thursday said the move by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to report the Speaker and ruling party’s MPs to the Ethics Committee was a “bizarre” publicity stunt.
Earlier Thursday, the DA said it had reported the Speaker and ANC MPs that “abetted the President (Jacob Zuma) contravene the Constitution” to Parliament’s Ethics Committee.
But the ANC said: “It is to be expected that the likes of the DA would seek to make maximum political capital out of the Constitutional Court judgment even through absurd publicity stunts, some of which not only border on self-parody but makes a mockery of serious parliamentary committees.”
In a statement issued by ANC Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu, the ruling party said: “One such media stunt is the party’s baffling and uninformed announcement that they intend to report ANC MPs who formed part of the ‘Nkandla Committee’ to the Ethics Committee of Parliament”.
The ANC said it was unheard of anywhere in the world that MPs would be penalised for fulfilling their parliamentary duties merely because certain decisions of parliament were, from time to time, set aside after a judicial review.
“If the DA’s bizarre logic was to be believed, history would be replete with thousands of MPs of various parties, who as part of Parliament, passed pieces of legislation or other decisions which were later overturned by the Courts,” said the ANC.
The ANC said the DA’s latest stunt “totally makes no sense” and was unworthy of the Ethics Committee’s time.
“Our system of checks and balances is self-corrective in nature, it ensures that where unconstitutionalities happen – as they would in any vibrant constitutional democracy – they are picked up and corrected. This augurs well for the strengthening of our state institutions and our democracy.” – African News Agency (ANA)