The five Democratic Alliance MPs who defected to other parties during the 15-day floor-crossing period earlier this month actually lost their seats, the Cape High Court heard on Monday.
Presenting his heads of argument to Judge Burton Fourie, DA counsel Jan Heunis said the floor-crossing legislation requires a minimum of 10% of a party’s MPs should leave their party ”in a bloc”, to avoid ”solo, unprincipled departures”.
The five MPs — Dan Maluleke, Richard Ntuli, Enyinna Nkem-Abonta and Bheki Mnyandu, who all joined the African National Congress, and Craig Morkel, who left to form his own party, the Progressive Independent Movement — did not constitute such a bloc.
”They must be deemed to have lost their seats in the National Assembly, which remain to be filled by the DA,” Heunis said.
The five could not be said to have crossed the floor, by virtue of their having waited up to two weeks, while pretending still to be DA members, to submit their defection forms to National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete.
Further, they did not constitute 10% of the DA, individually, or together, at the time they left the party.
When the floor-crossing window opened on September 1, the DA had 50 MPs, but was soon joined by Martin Stephens, who left the United Democratic Movement, and Len Joubert, who left the Inkatha Freedom Party.
The two defections were announced in the Assembly on September 6, and as parliamentary activity continued normally during the floor-crossing window, Stephens and Joubert subsequently voted along with their DA colleagues on various measures in the Assembly.
Four of the DA defectors, who were to announce their defection only on the afternoon of September 15 but who had already secretly joined the ANC, also voted with the DA.
Heunis argued that Ntuli, Nkem-Abonta and Mnyandu lost their seats by failing to inform Mbete of their decisions timeously.
Ntuli signed his defection form to Mbete on September 1 and was accepted into the ANC on the same day; Mnyandu signed his on September 2 and was accepted into the ANC that day; and Nkem-Abonta signed his on September 6 and was accepted into the ANC the same day.
All three, along with Maluleke, voted with the DA on legislation in the House on September 14, but only submitted their forms to Mbete at 4.50pm on September 15 — hours before the window closed at midnight.
Their defections were only announced in the House at 5.10pm that day.
Maluleke — who had left the DA ”some time” before 4.50pm on September 14, had still voted with the DA against the ANC only an hour before this.
Because they pretended still to be DA members and held back on submitting their forms, they failed to ”cross the floor” in terms of the Constitution and thus lost their seats, Heunis said. — Sapa