De Lille calls for referendum
2008-08-05 21:22
Cape Town - Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille called on Tuesday on President Thabo Mbeki to urgently hold a referendum on the fate of the Scorpions.
She said: "The ANC has arrogantly claimed that the duty of Parliament is to simply implement the policy of the ruling party, even if it runs counter to the will of the people."
The ANC had no mandate from the electorate to disband the Scorpions as it never campaigned on this issue in the elections in 2004 and nor did they inform voters of their intention at that time.
"They have no mandate to implement such a controversial policy of national importance without first holding a national referendum on the issue," said De Lille.
The National Assembly's justice and safety and security committees are holding public hearings on the legislation to disband the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), or Scorpions.
'Waste of money'
At the start of the hearings on Tuesday, the Freedom Front Plus's Pieter Groenewald questioned the purpose of the exercise, saying the government already had decided to disband the unit.
The hearings were a waste of taxpayers' money, he said.
Tertius Delport of the Democratic Alliance agreed, saying the hearings were a farce.
The hearings were "playing to the gallery" and to "bluff the public", he said.
Justice committee chairman Yunus Carrim countered that South Africa was a democracy and the ruling party had the right to implement its policy by virtue of its majority.
However, all inputs into the legislation would be considered by the committees and the two bills would be dealt with in the same way all other legislation was handled.
And, if it was clear that the majority of South Africans, including the governing party's supporters, were opposed to the measure, "surely parliament must take note", said Carrim.
He and safety and security committee chair Maggie Sotyu stood by their position that only 116 proper written submissions on the legislation had been received.
'Downplaying submissions'
However, the petitions and signatures, claimed by the DA to total over 100 000 names, would not be ignored.
These would be given "due weight", but did not help the legislative process in that they did not contain concrete proposals on the clauses in the legislation, said Carrim.
Later on Tuesday, Dianne Kohler-Barnard of the DA said she was asking National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete to initiate a full investigation into the conduct of the two chairs and "what appears to be a deliberate attempt to downplay the number of public submissions received".
- SAPA