Eleventh-hour legal steps by Winnie Madikizela-Mandela have staved off a planned public reprimand in the National Assembly for her failure to disclose regular, substantial donations in the Members’ Register of Interests, where MPs must disclose gifts, benefits and sponsorships of more than R350.
The last-minute efforts in the third week of March to obtain a court date, scheduled for April 14, follow Madikizela-Mandela’s appeal against last year’s guilty verdict by Parliament’s ethics committee. It came after details of donations and her financial interests emerged during the bail hearing preceding her fraud trial.
The ethics committee finding led to a unanimous National Assembly resolution in November calling for Madikizela-Mandela’s public censure and the docking of two weeks’ salary.
The appeal was launched late last year, with Madikizela-Mandela arguing that the committee had not given her a fair hearing. The committee has disputed this, saying she ignored summonses to appear on at least two occasions.
This legal move to set a court date has raised the stakes in Speaker Frene Ginwala’s efforts to crack down on ill-discipline. In the second week of March she said the reprimand would go ahead unless an interdict was obtained.
But Madikizela-Mandela’s lawyer, Votani Majola, said Parliament could not act against her now that a court date had been fixed. “If Parliament plans still insists on proceeding against my client, notwithstanding the latest developments, it would clearly indicate malice on the part of Parliament and we will obviously deal with that,” Sapa quotes him as saying.
Comment from Ginwala could not be obtained by the time of going to print. However, Parliament was trying to obtain a court date earlier than April 14 so that the matter could be finalised before the recess, which starts on April 16.
In the wake of these legal developments, Madikizela-Mandela was not expected in the National Assembly on Wednesday, rendering futile any attempt at a public reprimand. Had she simply failed to appear, the matter would have been referred to the African National Congress’s disciplinary structures through the leader of government business at Parliament, Deputy President Jacob Zuma.
ANC chief whip Nkosinathi Nhleko on Wednesday March 19 said now that a court date had been set, the party would have to await the outcome of the legal challenge. “Madikizela-Mandela is exercising her own individual legal right as a citizen of this country. We’ll have to observe that [court] process quite closely.”
Earlier in the third week of March the ANC in Parliament announced that it supported the speaker’s move for the public censure of Madikizela-Mandela by March 20. The party had sent a letter urging Madikizela-Mandela to present herself.
Meanwhile, Madikizela-Mandela remains under scrutiny of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC). It is understood its concerns include her repeated absences from NEC meetings, her role as ANC Women’s League president and her work performance.
Although extended leave and sick leave account for her absence from Parliament from last November, she has yet to account for 67 missed days of work, after attending Parliament only four times last year.
“We will have to study her reasons for her non-attendance and proceed from that point,” Nhleko said, adding that being absent without leave was a “disciplinary offence contrary to the party’s deployment policy”.