Court hears Mkhwebane removal process is ‘driven by vendetta’
The Western Cape High Court on Wednesday heard an urgent application by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwena to stop Parliament from removing her.
Earlier this year, National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise granted the Democratic Alliance (DA) its request to start a process to remove Mkhwebane from office.
The party submitted a 7000 document as evidence of alleging Mkhwebane is not fit to hold office.
The application was set for March but due to the Covid-19 lockdown, it was postponed.
Mkhwebane's application has two parts.
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The first part is to ask the court to interdict Parliament from continuing with the process to remove her and the second part is to challenge that process itself.
"The court should not allow the process to continue because to do so is prejudicial and also that it is just not in the interest of justice to have a process that is doomed to fail or to be declared unconstitutional to proceed," said Mkhwebane's legal representative, Advocate Dali Mpofu.
Mpofu said the DA's motion is driven by a vendetta.
"The DA in its own words say Mkhwebane should not have been appointed in the first place, they insult her and call her a spy which is false and there are separate legal proceedings against those spy allegation.”
Judge Vincent Saldhana seemed unconvinced by the argument, saying the DA is fulfilling its constitutional mandate.
He also said the DA's motives are irrelevant as Mkhwebane seeks to challenge Parliamentary rules on the removal of the head of Chapter 9 institutions.
Mpofu maintained that Modise has acted unfairly towards Mkhwebane.
