Mungo Soggot
Now that the dust has settled on the Constitutional Court’s ruling, federalists are realising that they got less than it had at first appeared. Only a fraction of the main political parties’ complaints succeeded.
Said the court: “The basic structure of the Constitution is sound and the overwhelming majority of the requirements of the Constitutional Principles have been satisfied. The instances of non-compliance that have been identified should present no significant obstacle to the Constitutional Assembly in formulating a text which complies fully with those requirements.”
How did the main political parties score?
* The Democratic Party attacked the bulk of the clauses in the Constitution which had anything to do with regulating provincial powers to persuade the court there had been a substantial reduction in them.
Away from the provincial powers, its other objections included the absence of a clause guaranteeing employers the right to lock out. The DP did score a direct hit with its attack on the clause governing the independence of the auditor general and the public protector.
* The Inkatha Freedom Party’s saturation bombing of the Constitution’s provisions for provincial powers was unsuccessful. The party attacked virtually all the constitution’s angles on provincial power.
It complained the final text had departed from the interim constitution in undermining provinces’ ability to change their names, create armed organisations and raise gambling taxes. It said the principle that minority parties should be allowed a role consistent with democracy had been undermined and that the principle which offered communities the chance of “self-determination” had not been honoured.
It objected to the clause which allowed the National Assembly oversight of all organs of state and homed in (successfully) on the final Constitution’s handling of local government, particularly the reduction of provincial control over it.
* The National Party argued that the test for whether there had been a substantial diminution of provincial muscle was whether as a whole there were fewer powers. The DP and the IFP, on the other hand, examined each individual provincial power guaranteed by the final text to see if the provinces had got a raw deal. The court took the NP’s global approach.
The NP hit out at the ease with which national government could now override provincial legislation, and at the weakening of the provinces’ financial and fiscal powers. It also gunned for the omission of a lock-out clause.