DA wants CR to be charged for perjury

Ramaphosa’s troubles far from over as party seeks action

TROUBLES surrounding President Cyril Ramaphosa seem far from over.

Last week Ramaphosa was drawn into a battle of opinion pieces, open letters and a press conference between Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo and his Cabinet members Lindiwe Sisulu and Ronald Lamola.

ANC staff are declaring a “tools down” this week as they’re not paid their full salaries and yesterday the opposition DA called on Justice Zondo to have Ramaphosa charged for perjury for misleading the judicial commission of inquiry into state capture.

DA shadow minister for public service and administration Leon Schreiber said that using a similar precedent established when the commission approached the Constitutional Court to obtain an order of contempt against president Jacob Zuma when he refused to appear before the commission, it was now time to hold Ramaphosa similarly accountable for the misleading testimony he gigglingly delivered before the commission in an attempt to hide the truth about ANC cadre deployment

“During his testimony before the state capture commission on 28 April 2021, Ramaphosa denied that the ANC’s cadre deployment committee sought to influence appointments to the judiciary. After he initially denied that the appointment of judges was ever even discussed, Ramaphosa sought to backpedal by stating that: ‘I do recall once where (judicial) vacancies were mentioned and it was just in passing … the deployment committee would look at where are vacancies, but it never resulted or descended into saying this (candidate) would be good (and) that one would not be good.’

“However, thanks to the DA’s efforts to expose meeting minutes of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee, we now know that this was an untruthful statement,” said Schreiber.

Schreiber said that during a meeting of the ANC deployment committee on March 22, 2019, the committee overtly “descended into saying” which judges “would be good”.

Schreiber said that, in fact, the committee went even further by explicitly recommending the names of particular judges it wants “deployed” to the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeal, the Labour Court, and the Eastern Cape and Northern Cape divisions of the High Court.

During the same meeting, the ANC also lamented “the judiciary having too much power”.

He added that these revelations that the ANC interferes in the appointment of judges threatens to create a constitutional crisis by undermining faith in the independence of the judiciary.

“It is simply untenable that, instead of protecting our country’s constitutional order by telling the truth and undertaking to end cadre deployment, the sitting president of the Republic seemingly chose to mislead the commission to protect the ANC,” added Schreiber.

He also said that when Justice Zondo directly approached the Concourt seeking an order of contempt against Zuma, he created an important precedent that any person who sought to undermine the work of the state capture commission would be held liable, with Zuma ultimately being sentenced to a 15 months prison sentence.

“It is critical that the commission uphold this principle by applying the same standard and mechanism of directly approaching the Constitutional Court in this case of apparent perjury by Ramaphosa,” he said.

Schreiber said a further case in point was that former social development minister Bathabile Dlamini provides further precedent for prosecution based on alleged perjured testimony delivered before a judicial commission of inquiry.

“Dlamini is currently in court for the very same offence after she apparently delivered false testimony before the judicial commission of inquiry into Sassa, which was chaired by Judge Bernard Ngoepe.

“The DA believes that there is thus ample legal precedent for Justice Zondo to approach the Constitutional Court to hold Ramaphosa accountable and protect the integrity of not only the commission’s work, but of the entire South African judicial system,” he said.

Last year when Ramaphosa appeared before the commission, evidence leader Paul Pretorius questioned him on the ANC’s deployment committee which is alleged to be recommending judges who were to fill two vacant positions – one in the Supreme Court of Appeal and another for judge president.

Ramaphosa said that the committee was not the appointing committee.

He said that political parties would try to influence and that whatever the appointing process was, the president would take into Judicial Service Commission processes. Ramaphosa said the ANC had the ability to make recommendations and this was normal worldwide.

Presidency spokesperson, Tyrone Seale, had not responded by the time of publication