Parliament wins court victory over removal of EFF MPs from Sonas

Parliament's removal of errant EFF members as a “last resort” after they disrupted two state of the nation addresses (Sonas) was justified, the Western Cape High Court has found.

Judge Derek Wille handed down the ruling on Monday after the EFF brought an application more than five years after their eviction from parliamentary sittings in 2015 and 2017. The matter was heard from April 15 to 16 2024.

EFF leader Julius Malema and 23 MPs from the party were the applicants in the matter while the speaker of the National Assembly, the chair of the National Council of Provinces and the police minister were the respondents.

There is also another matter pending before the same court involving Malema, his deputy Floyd Shivambu and MPs Marshall Dlamini, Sinawo Thambo, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and Vuyani Pambo, who were found guilty of contempt of parliament by the powers and privileges committee and handed a 30-day suspension without pay.

This was after the MPs stormed the stage at the 2023 Sona, demanding President Cyril Ramaphosa’s resignation.

In 2015, the EFF disrupted former president Jacob Zuma's Sona speech in an attempt to hold him accountable for the upgrades to his private home at Nkandla.

They repeated this in 2017, sending the sitting into chaos and resulting in their MPs again being forcibly ejected while the DA walked out from the chamber.

The former MPs sought a declaratory order that it was “unconstitutional to order [its] parliamentary members to be ejected” from the National Assembly on both occasions.

They also sought constitutional damages provided they were successful in their court bid.

The EFF also claimed the “process [to eject them] was styled as including some gratuitous violence”.

“In summary, the first applicant says its members were unlawfully and violently assaulted during and after their removal. This is against prevailing legislation and with no frontal attack on the validity of any parliamentary rules,” Wille said.

The EFF members also argued freedom of speech “entitles them to ignore parliamentary rules” as well as the authority of the speaker.

“That said, it can never be so that free speech becomes so important that it trumps entirely the nature of the parliamentary process and its functions,” the judge said.

The former MPs had not disputed their removal was “done as a last resort” and “was necessitated to ensure parliamentary proceedings could proceed without unnecessary interruption”.

“Most significantly, the applicants do not challenge the prevailing legislation or the rules. This is important because a claim for constitutional damages should not be instituted where an effective remedy exists in common law,” he said.

That they did not apply for “species of condonation” despite bringing the court challenge more than five years later worked against them as they failed to provide any explanation for the “inordinate delay,” Wille said.

In dismissing the EFF's application with costs, he found: “The disguised and chameleonic approach of dressing up the true cause of action was an attempt to circumvent statutory hurdles and this application was not infused with any true constitutional ingredients.”

TimesLIVE