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DA in court to force Zuma to explain reshuffle

Wednesday April 26 2017
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South African President Jacob Zuma in a reflective moment. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has said it will press charges against President Jacob Zuma’s eldest son for insulting two former Cabinet ministers. FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

South Africa’s opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has approached the Pretoria North High Court in a bid to force President Jacob Zuma to explain last month’s Cabinet reshuffle.

The party has filed an urgent application to compel President Zuma to disclose his reasons for the sweeping changes.

The head of the party’s federal executive, Mr James Selfe, said the application was in line with the party’s earlier one to review the rationality of the decision to remove former Finance minister Pravin Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas from their posts in the March 31 reshuffle.

The relationship

“This latest urgent application is necessary to force the President to disclose the reasons for and the record of his decision to reshuffle his cabinet so that our earlier application to review the rationality of his decision can proceed,” Mr Selfe said.

President Zuma and Mr Gordhan are known to be foes and following the reshuffle, South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) said it had accepted that the relationship between the two was irreconcilable.

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On the other hand, Mr Jonas is the man who exposed President Zuma’s purported cronies, the cash-rich Gupta family, in the public protector’s state capture report. The report alleged that the Indian family had, over the years, benefited in their business dealings because of their friendship with the South African leader.

DA said the South African leader’s decision to dismiss ministers or their deputies must pass the standards of rationality. They believe the recent reshuffle was irrational and unlawful.

Mr Selfe said, in its founding papers for the second application, that the party was asking the court to order the president to provide a written record of his reasons for the reshuffle.

He said President Zuma had been disingenuous in maintaining that he was not obliged to disclose his thinking as he had been exercising his executive power.

The purpose

DA has said the exercise of public power must be subject to the principles of legality and rationality.

“It has also been established in law that all constitutional powers are subject to constitutional constraints. In particular, it is a requirement of our law that a decision must be rationally related to the purpose for which the power was conferred.

Following the reshuffle, four ANC Members of Parliament, who were axed as ministers, went on to resign from the House. Mr Jonas was one of the MPs who quit his position as a legislator.

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