Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - University of Limpopo full professor Kgothatso Shai believes power-hungry politicians will find a way to transgress the soon-to-be-ratified Executive Ethics Code.
Shai is one of the analysts who reacted to this week’s Constitutional Court ruling confirming parts of the code as unconstitutional.
In a unanimous 38-page judgment, the Concourt upheld an earlier ruling by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, which found the Executive Ethics Code to be inconsistent with the Constitution.
The court gave President Cyril Ramaphosa or the Office of the President and the National Assembly until September next year to correct the inconsistencies and ensure that Cabinet members and MECs disclose donations from internal political party funding.
However, the Concourt did not suspend the Executive Ethics Code itself, but the operation of the order rendering it unconstitutional.
This means the ruling will not negatively impact the public protector’s ongoing investigation into Ramaphosa's Phala Phala farm scandal, as she relies on the code to investigate the matter.
The Concourt ruling is merely aimed at preventing what happened during the ANC’s 54th national conference in Nasrec, where Ramaphosa received about R1 billion for his internal political party campaign.
According to Shai, the judgment is no reason to think politicians would be completely prevented from finding a way to dodge the new laws to be set.
“As our anti-corruption legislative framework is improved, predators will always find more creative or sophisticated ways to ply their trade. That’s their way of life,” said Shai, who is head of the Department of Cultural and Political Studies at the university.
The professor, however, welcomed the ruling as a vindication of the judiciary.
“The judgment confirms that South Africa’s judiciary is not vindictive as is often purported within the political circles. Thus, South Africa’s legislative instruments are not perfect. Where weaknesses are identified, such will be acknowledged and reasonably addressed without collapsing the whole legal system.
“This legal development will go a long way in terms of levelling the political playing field, thereby assisting in the quest to bridge the widening gap between the circles of the haves and the have-nots,” said Shai.
Independent political analyst Gakwi Mashego said the Presidency should look to the US on how to fix issues of political benefits going forward.
“Ironically, the president has just come from the US, where the ethics code operates differently from South Africa. Maybe that’s a model they should emulate, that says a political leader in the White House must walk out the same as he walked in.
“This means when you receive gifts as a president, they remain gifts of the White House.”
Pretoria News