OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Friday7.00am.
WESTERN Cape attorney-general Frank Kahn on Friday indicated he would not accept assault charges laid by either of the two MPs involved in Thursday evening’s punch-up in Parliament, because he has no jurisdiction over the institution.
Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala has full jurisdiction over any offence committed in Parliament, even over the police, and it is her prerogative to deal with the matter as she sees fit, he said.
“Even if I had jurisdiction, it is up to the Speaker to put her own house in order,” Kahn said.
Both Eastern Cape National Party leader Dr Manie Schoeman, who appeared to land the first blow, and senior African National Congress MP Johnny de Lange, who “instinctively” floored Schoeman with a lightning right-cross “in self-defence”, threatened to lay charges against each other with the police after the incident.
Party whips were understood to be in intense discussions on Friday in an effort to resolve the incident, which has no precedent within the actual National Assembly chamber.
NP caucus chairman Andre Fourie, who was on the scene of the punch-up, and been in Parliament for 21 years, said he recalled only one similar incident, which had happened before his time. The late Jack Basson of the old United Party, whacked Jaap Marais, then a member of the NP, after Marais called him a communist. However, it happened in the foyer.
Some of the longer-serving members of the Press Gallery Association also recall an incident, during the dying days of the tri-cameral Parliament in 1992, when Farouk Cassim, now an Inkatha Freedom Party MP, was involved in a scuffle in the corridors with fellow House of Delegates member Amichand “Bengal Tiger” Rajbansi. In that instance, the Raj suffered an injury to a sensitive area, but appeared more concerned about the fact that his wig had been dislodged during the scuffle.