Justice Minister Penuell Maduna is to ask Parliament to affect changes to draft defection legislation in line with an agreement reached between the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the African National Congress (ANC).
This follows a last-minute deal struck between the parties to remove the retrospective nature of the legislation, thus averting a possible early election in KwaZulu-Natal.
Justice representative Paul Setsetse said on Wednesday the minister would approach Speaker of Parliament Frene Ginwala regarding amendments to the draft Constitution of SA Fourth Amendment Bill, tabled in the National Assembly in November last year.
”The bill will not be withdrawn, it only means we will ask for amendments to those clauses where agreement (between the IFP and ANC in KwaZulu-Natal) has been reached,” he said.
The agreement led to the IFP backing down on its threat to call a vote to dissolve the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.
The IFP decided against tabling a motion to dissolve the legislature at a special sitting in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday, after the ANC gave a guarantee that it would not attempt to retrospectively amend floor-crossing legislation.
Premier Lionel Mtshali (IFP) told a special sitting of the legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday his party had received written assurances from President Thabo Mbeki, Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna that the retrospective nature of the bill would be withdrawn.
Last year, five members of the legislature defected to the ANC from the Democratic Alliance (DA), IFP and United Democratic Movement (UDM), but they lost their seats when the Constitutional Court ruled that the defection legislation for national and provincial legislatures was flawed.
Maduna then tabled a new floor-crossing bill, which included provisions to effectively legalise those defections retrospectively. The defections would have given the ANC control of the KwaZulu-Natal legislature.
Parliament’s justice portfolio committee had been due to begin deliberations on the bill later this month. – Sapa