South Africa’s highest court has ruled that elected politicians at all three levels of government may defect to another party without losing their seats.
The Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that floor-crossing legislation passed by Parliament in June was constitutional.
Reading the unanimous judgement, Judge President Arthur Chaskalson said the window period for defections would start on October 8 and continue for 15 days.
Until then, politicans are protected from expulsion from the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and local government bodies if they already said they intend to defect.
The judgement is expected to change the balance of power in favour of the African National Congress in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature and the Cape Town nicity Council.
The court gave three judgements, two of which were technical and related to the Cape High Court order freezing the constitutional amendments earlier this year.
The judgement on the merits of the case dealt with four acts — two of which were amendments to the Constitution.
Chaskalson said the two constitutional amendments followed all the legal requirement for such amendments and were thus constitutionally valid.
They now form part of the constitution and floor-crossing is permitted. Each party has been ordered to pay its own costs.
Earlier, the UDM, the Inkatha Freedom Party, the African Christian Democratic Party and the Pan Africanist Congress, as well as KwaZulu-Natal premier Lionel Mtshali, had asked the court in August to find the floor-crossing legislation unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Court at the time also issued an order suspending the legislation until it passed judgement.
The judgement by the Constitutional court means that the Democratic Alliance’s majority in the Cape Town unicity could come to an end.
If the court gives the go-ahead for floor-crossing a substantial NNP walkover could swing the balance of power in favour of the ANC.
The judgement on proposed changes to so-called crossing-the-floor legislation has ended months of political uncertainty, not only in the Western Cape. Politicians in KwaZulu-Natal had similar arguments.
In Cape Town the DA, led by controversial mayor Gerald Morkel, commands 107 of the 200 seats — of which 70 are occupied by former NNP members and the other 37 by ex-Democratic Party stalwarts.
The ANC, which has a co-operation agreement with the NNP and has already nominated its mayoral candidate, holds 77 seats.
The African Christian Democratic Party has eight, the United Democratic Movement three, and four other parties share the remaining five seats. – Sapa