The Constitutional Court will be hearing argument today as to whether mayoral committees at municipal-council level are required to provide for multi-party representation.

Section 160(8) of the Constitution states that members of a municipal council are entitled to participate in its proceedings and those of its committees in a manner that allows parties and interests reflected within the council to be fairly represented. The Local Government: Municipal Structures Act, in turn, requires that where a municipal council has more than nine members, its executive mayor must appoint a mayoral committee from among the councillors to assist the executive mayor. This case - to be heard by the Constitutional Court on Thursday 14 November 2002 - examines whether the section requires that minority parties be represented on such mayoral committee.

The mayoral committee established by the Executive Mayor of the Council of the City of Johannesburg, Councillor Amos Masondo, is made up of members of the majority party only, in this case the African National Congress. An opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, challenged the exclusion of its members from the mayoral council in a High Court on the basis that it was inconsistent with the Constitution.

This challenge failed, with the court holding that a mayoral committee is not a committee of the municipal council but of the executive mayor to which the section therefore does not apply. The reasoning was that the mayoral committee is established by the mayor and is accountable only to him; the mayoral committee furthermore dissolves if and when the mayor ceases to occupy that position; the mayor may also terminate any person's membership of the mayoral committee at any time.

The Democratic Alliance now asks for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court against this decision, contending that the high court erred and the Executive Mayor supports its conclusion.

Judgement is likely to be reserved.