By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
@JanGerber.
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is going after Thandi Modise and wants the National Assembly speaker to pay up for her handling of the impeachment saga.
Mkhwebane’s legal challenge to the rules governing the impeachment process she’s currently facing kicked off in the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town on Monday, when her lawyer, advocate Dali Mpofu SC, argued Modise should be slapped with a personal costs order and made to dig into her own pocket to cover 20% of the legal bills the case had racked up.
Mpofu argued that as speaker, Modise was duty-bound to remain impartial but had in this case “shown all the signs of siding with the Democratic Alliance [DA]”, which brought the motion for Mkhwebane’s removal in the first place.
“This court has a duty to send a message to officials that they must not abuse their office and seek to even take sides … You cannot have a situation where the speaker is taking the cudgels,” he charged.
The DA brought the motion last February and it centres on Mkhwebane’s investigations into the bailout the SA Reserve Bank provided for what was then Bankorp during the late 1980s and early 1990s; as well into the Vrede dairy farm scandal and into the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
All the reports that Mkhwebane penned on the back of these investigations have – at least in part – been set aside by the courts, which have also often been scathing of Mkhwebane and even slapped her with personal costs orders.
Mpofu on Monday argued the rules were unconstitutional in that they provided for impeachment on the grounds of “temporary” incapacity – which he labelled an “absurdity” and an attempt to amend the Constitution “through the back door” – as well as that they could not, in any case, be applied retrospectively.
He also argued the rules limited a chapter 9 institution head’s rights to full legal representation, with no justification for this offered up.
The case is expected to continue on Tuesday.