ACE FIGHTS ANC IN COURT

SUSPENDED ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule’s supporters yesterday failed in their attempt to join his legal challenge to his suspension for refusing to step aside after being charged with fraud, corruption and money laundering.

The full Bench of the high court in Johannesburg – Judges Jody Kollapen, Sharise Weiner and Edwin Molahlehi – heard arguments in the former Free State premier’s urgent application to have the ANC’s step-aside rule and last month’s letter suspending him declared unlawful, unconstitutional, invalid and null and/or void.

Former ANC branch chairperson in Gauteng and businessman Mutumwa Mawere’s application to intervene was heard and later struck from the roll by the judges.

The ANC’s Fezile Dabi region, the Arthur Pitso and Jomo Marumo branches, branch secretary Pule Nthene and member Thabang Nkhoke, all based in the Free State, and Nkosentsha Shezi, from eThekwini in KwaZulu-Natal, also sought to join Magashule’s urgent application but their matter was argued through the parties’ written submissions.

Mawere told the court that if he was allowed to intervene in Magashule’s application he wanted the ANC’s disciplinary proceedings declared beyond the powers and that its national executive committee (NEC) and lower structures have no jurisdiction to issue any suspension orders against any member.

However, Mawere, who was suspended by the Gauteng provincial executive committee as branch chairperson in 2012, was unsuccessful as the judges felt that his application did not deal with Magashule’s challenge to rule 25.70, which is what they believe was squarely before them.

The matter was struck from the roll with costs.

The ANC successfully opposed Mawere’s application on the basis that it was not urgent and that he launched proceedings to challenge his suspension in 2013 and these were still pending.

In the court’s ruling in the intervention applications, the court stated that it could not be invited to intervene in an application where Mawere seeks relief in respect of his own suspension while has not done anything substantive in the past few years to prosecute those proceedings.

“The ANC also opposed Mawere’s application on the basis that he does not have a direct and substantive interest in the main application that would justify his intervention,” said Judge Kollapen.

Mawere also failed in his challenge to ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte’s authority and the appointment of the party’s lawyers, Ledwaba Mazwai Attorneys.

He disputed the ANC’s authority to oppose the intervention application and to appoint Ledwaba Mazwai Attorneys to represent the party and Duarte’s authority to depose the answering affidavit on the governing party’s behalf.

The Free State and KZN members were also unsuccessful as the judges also struck their matters from the roll with costs due to lack of urgency.

When arguments on the merits of Magashule’s matter started, his senior counsel Dali Mpofu registered his concerns that in deciding the three applications for intervention, the court also dealt with issues that he believed were meant to be tackled in the main application.

Mpofu complained that this gave the impression that these issues had been prejudged before the main application was even heard.

He also accused the ANC of having flagrantly disregarded the setting out of the timeline for it to file its responses.

According to Mpofu, Duarte and the ANC displayed a sense of arrogance and entitlement and literally ignored the deadlines.

He called on the court to deal with the issue in its costs order, to show that such conduct deserved the strongest judicial frown.

Mpofu warned against using the court as though it was just one’s “side office” and that this was something that must be deprecated.

Magashule is facing fraud, corruption and money laundering charges for his alleged role in the R255 million project to eradicate asbestos roofs in houses in the Free State.