If only ANC MPs cared more about the constitution of the country than they did about Luthuli House, writes Eusebius.
No doubt the president’s legal team will feel the sting of the second procedural argument, which accuses them of effectively making an undergraduate error by conflating “exclusive jurisdiction” and “direct access”. Zungula disentangles these concepts, and focuses directly on direct access after dispensing with the non-applicability of exclusive jurisdiction.
The political consequences of this case cannot be sufficient reason to grant direct access, argues Zungula. For me, however, the more interesting further argument carries more weight: that is, by sitting as both a court of first and last instance in a matter of this importance, the court deprives itself of an opportunity to work with and through the legal findings and reasoning of other judges within the court system.
The public debate has not focused on these procedural matters because we are all interested in the substantive allegations as citizens. That makes sense. Lawyers will tell us, however, that complex legal strategies must involve simultaneously paying attention to legal technicalities, including whether due process requirements are met, and not only by diving straight into the juicy substantive issues.
One argument is the panel’s work is non-binding and “merely recommendatory in nature” which means it is not reviewable. More precisely, the work of the panel does not generate “final decisions capable of creating direct consequences”. Parliament can consider the report and simply reject it, bringing the impeachment process to a crashing end, within the bounds of constitutionalism.
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