Per-Sona non grata: EFF leader Malema, five others fail to overturn suspension

Hours before the State of the Nation Address (Sona) the Western Cape High Court dismissed the EFF MPs’ bid to overturn their salary-less suspension for February because they had failed to show good reasons or that they would suffer real harm and prejudice.

“The court has to pay due and proper respect to Parliament’s competence to regulate its process and affairs, including the disciplining of members...” said the full Bench judgement.

Parliament’s choice and timing of the suspension of EFF leader Julius Malema and the five others was “deliberate and conscious” — and the EFF MPs not being able to attend Sona was “both as punishment for their behaviour at the previous year’s Sona and to prevent them from possibly causing a similar disruption at this year’s one”, according to the judgment.

Malema, his deputy Floyd Shivambu, secretary-general Marshall Dlamini, EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi and two others were suspended without pay for the month of February for contempt of Parliament for disrupting the 2023 Sona. Malema and others walked with placards to the stage where President Ramaphosa was sitting.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Armed police in the House set the stage for Ramaphosa declaring a National State of Disaster

The initial court application against the suspension was struck off the court roll as the voluminous documents were filed late, and proceeding with the case could have amounted to a miscarriage of justice, according to the majority on the full Bench.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Sona no-go for EFF leader Julius Malema and five others after high court bid fails

Thursday’s Western Cape High Court ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions that have gone against the EFF, most recently its bid against the new rules for joint sittings, setting down the president may not be disrupted when delivering Sona.

Read more in Daily Maverick: EFF in new court bid to attend Sona, now with stricter rules

Those rules were adopted in early December with all but 23 EFF MPs voting for them, signalling impatience from other political parties also on the opposition benches with the EFF tactics of disruption.

EEF leader Julius Malema and deputy Floyd Shivambu at the party’s 10th-anniversary celebration at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg on 29 July, 2023. (Photo: Gallo Images / Papi Morake)

However, the new joint sitting rules raise serious questions, including for expressly allowing weapons in the House which is a first in democratic South Africa — even if qualified by “in extraordinary circumstances” — and expressly permitting the use of force to evict rowdy MPs.

Earlier in February EFF Chief Whip and deputy leader Floyd Shivambu also lost his bid to overturn the sanction of nine day’s salary deduction for failing to declare R180,000 received in 2017 from Sgameka Pty Limited, a company linked to the VBS mutual bank scandal. The liquidator of VBS testified before Parliament’s joint ethics committee before it found Shivambu contravened the ethics code. The sanction was subsequently adopted in the House.

Parliament’s presiding officers National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and National Council of Provinces (Ncop) Chairperson Amos Masondo on Wednesday said all was in place for Sona.

“We are absolutely happy with all the work and demonstrated the meticulous planning that went into this major event,” said a statement by Parliament.

The State of the Nation Address will be delivered from 7pm after the ceremonial pomp and ceremony which will see the return of the civil guards for the first time in several years, while Ramaphosa will take the 21-gun salute next to the statue of South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela at the City Hall. DM