R2K Statement: South Africa needs answers about Parliament’s undemocratic tendencies
Issued by the Right2Know, 15 November 2014
The events in the National Assembly on Thursday night demand immediate answers.
1. Who authorised armoured police to enter the National Assembly to assault MPs?
Source: Twitter.com
We note unconvincing assurances in Speaker Mbete’s media briefing on Friday morning, to the effect that the police had entered the chamber under her authority. However, an eyewitness account by a Business Day journalist reports that four members of the Public Order Policing unit appeared to enter the chamber “on their own initiative” to assault an EFF member and several others, after Parliament’s civilian security personnel appeared to refuse an order to remove the EFF member. This version is supported by several other reports from media workers who were present.
The act has significant consequences as it is not only a breach of the constitution in terms of Section 58 of the Constitution, which prohibits arrests, criminal or civil procedure on members of parliament for what they say in parliament, but has the effect of irrevocably undermining parliament as a democratic institution in the eyes of citizens.
R2K intends to write to the whips of various parties in the National Assembly calling for an investigation of these matters: under whose authority did the SAPS members enter the chamber and assault elected Parliamentarians? We will urge the whips to ensure that this event is never repeated.
2. Who shut off the cameras and suspended the Parliamentary television service?
Thursday was the second instance in recent months where Parliament’s television service has been cut abruptly during a moment of controversy. In August 2014, when Speaker Baleka Mbete ordered Parliament’s sergeant-at-arms to expel EFF members from the House, and police were called into the House to forcibly removed them. There has been no credible explanation for the cutting of Parliament’s live television feed, and no explanation can justify it.
Section 59 of the Constitution states that Parliament must “conduct its business in an open manner, and hold its sittings … in public”.
In the coming week R2K will request that the chief whips of the National Assembly ensure that a credible investigation takes place to determine who exactly was behind these decisions to cut the TV feed. Were they unauthorised actions by a member of Parliamentary staff? If yes, what action has been taken to ensure that it does not happen again? If the action was in terms of some shadowy policy, we must know what that policy is, so that we can demand its removal. Parliament has no right to shut the public out in this way. We will urge the chief whips to ensure that the television feed is never suspended again.
In a society where many ordinary people sadly still face exactly these kinds of violations – censorship, silencing, and brutality at the hands of the police – South Africans have the right to know who gave these instructions and who should be held to account for such deeply undemocratic tendencies.
