‘Parliament is being derailed by the opposition,’ Constitution conference is told

Day two of the National Conference on the Constitution began with a plenary discussion on “the effectiveness of the legislature in advancing constitutional democracy” between the co-chairperson of the Constitutional Review Committee, Dr Mathole Motshekga, and Dr Mosibudi Mangena, a board member of the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection. 

“Parliament has failed or neglected to execute its duty of working using political freedom to attain socioeconomic freedom for South Africans because it is not only a custodian of constitutional values but it is also responsible for the realisation of these values,” said Motshekga. 

He blamed the failure of Parliament on the multiparty system, which he said was being used to “derail” Parliament because opposition parties sought to use the judiciary to “usurp” Parliament’s powers, which resulted in the government spending money and resources on court cases to defend itself from opposition parties. 

Motshekga said opposition parties used their “freedom of speech and motions of no confidence” to derail Parliament. “Parliament is being abused by the opposition,” he said. 

“The country is not able to move forward because of the multiparty system… government is being failed by people in Parliament who are there for their stomachs and not the interests of South African people,” said Motshekga. 

He pointed out that the Preamble to the Constitution says: “‘We must address the injustices of the past, colonial conquest and violent dispossession of land and natural resources.’ Parliament needs to spell out this injustice and come up with a plan to address it and it hasn’t been able to do this because of opposition parties.” 

Mangena told the audience: “At a formal level, Parliament is functional and has been passing laws and practising its oversight role and the laws have been legal and constitutional.”  

He said whenever laws being passed were found not to pass constitutional muster, the courts stepped in for the laws to be revised and fixed.  

However, Mangena bluntly stated that he regarded Parliament as the weakest of the three arms of the state, which he said was largely due to its own doing. He listed three reasons:

1. There is too much litigation relating to Parliament which is mainly on procedural matters or rulings by presiding officers. If one arm of the state was seen to be incompetent, it “invited interference from other arms. There is a fear that the judiciary might be overreaching, but if it is invited it has no option but to play its role.”


2. The oversight role has been conceived as timid, weak and ineffective. The executive, in particular, has simply ignored pronouncements on its oversight role and the wrongs pointed out by Parliament are ignored by the executive. “We have seen when wrongdoing is presented to Parliament it mounted a spirited defence of the executive.” Mangena said that reports by the Public Protector on state-owned entities such as Eskom and SAA  were simply brushed aside until the Zondo Commission was established.


3. The chaotic nature of parliamentary proceedings, including violence and insults: “might be entertaining to some but it doesn’t advance the constitutional democracy. Yes, Parliament must be vibrant and have contestation, but not what it is now. It’s meant to advance democracy and must set a tone in the nation that contestation must be within a democratic dispensation without intimidation.”