Cape Town – The Democratic Alliance (DA) has taken legal action to have ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula held in contempt of court and potentially imprisoned.
The move follows a recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision that rejected Mbalula’s attempt to appeal a prior Johannesburg High Court ruling, which mandated the ANC to provide its cadre deployment records to the DA.
The SCA ruling reinstated the deadline for the ANC to submit these records, dating back to January 1, 2013.
DA MP Leon Schreiber initiated the process in 2021 under the Promotion of Access to Information Act but faced resistance from the ANC.
The ANC is in contempt of a Court order issued by the Supreme Court of Appeal that compelled the ANC to make public its cadre deployment corruption records.
The DA is now approaching the court and will seek the committal to prison of ANC’s Fikile Mbalula.https://t.co/vArS2docNx
— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) September 29, 2023
Despite the SCA’s decision, the ANC has not complied with the court’s orders, prompting the DA to seek Mbalula’s imprisonment for contempt of court.
Read the statement by the DA below:
The Democratic Alliance (DA) can today reveal that the African National Congress (ANC) is in contempt of a Court order issued by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that compelled the ANC to make public its cadre deployment records. In response to the ANC’s defiance of this court ruling, the DA is approaching the court for an order of contempt and will seek the committal to prison of ANC Secretary-General, Fikile Mbalula. Since the ANC’s doomed appeal at the SCA was filed under Mbalula’s name, he has made himself guilty of the same contempt of court offence that led to the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma.
The DA will consequently launch a court application to send Mbalula to prison using the very precedent established in the Zuma case. It is time that the ANC learns that there are consequences for undermining justice in South Africa.
On 4 September, the SCA rejected, with costs, an attempt by Mbalula to appeal an earlier ruling from the Johannesburg High Court that the ANC must hand over its cadre deployment records to the DA. The SCA ruling reinstated the deadline imposed by the High Court, which gave the ANC five working days to hand over all cadre deployment records dating back to 1 January 2013 – when President Cyril Ramaphosa became chairman of the deployment committee.
The deadline for handing over the cadre deployment records to the DA was 8 September.
On 7 September, the DA received a letter from the ANC’s lawyers, indicating that the party intended to run to the Constitutional Court in a panicked last-ditch appeal bid. The DA subsequently wrote to the ANC’s lawyers, giving them until 12:00 on 20 September to file their papers if the party intended to proceed with the appeal. The ANC failed to meet this deadline.
Yesterday, the DA again wrote to the ANC’s lawyers, indicating that the 15-day court deadline for filing an appeal lapsed the day before, on 26 September. This means that the ANC is now in contempt of the SCA ruling. The DA made it clear that, if the ANC failed to hand over its cadre deployment records by 12:00 on 28 September 2023, we would approach the court for urgent contempt of court relief. We further undertook to place all our correspondence with the ANC before the court, to demonstrate the ANC’s reckless disregard of a court order, knowing full well the obligation it had to comply with the SCA order in the absence of an appeal to the Constitutional Court.
It is clear that the ANC has realised that any appeal to the Constitutional Court is doomed to fail. But the DA will not allow the ANC to get away with this latest attempt at using Stalingrad tactics to undermine the cause of justice. The people of South Africa have an inalienable right of access to the information contained in the ANC’s cadre deployment records, because these documents demonstrate how the party illegally interfered in public appointment processes to deploy the cadres who captured and corrupted the state under the chairmanship of Ramaphosa.
In the next phase of our quest to expose and abolish the ANC cadre deployment corruption that has destroyed service delivery, the DA will send Fikile Mbalula to prison for undermining the right of South Africans to access the vital information contained in the ANC’s cadre deployment records.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu