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Parliamentary Convention holds that any minister who deliberately, knowingly, and willfully misleads the House is bound to resign. It goes to the question of integrity. When that integrity is compromised, the position they occupy is compromised.
Minister Suzan Shabangu and Minister Edna Molewa, fearing the worst for having uttered a brazen lie, tried to postpone the evil day indefinitely. Now that the Deputy Speaker has made the ruling in their absence and this is now public knowledge, they need to resign or be fired.
They lack the credibility to continue in office.
Mr Lekota is fully vindicated in holding that he never mobilized the army nor had any instruction from the President to do so during his term of office.
However, the reference by Minister Shabangu that;
- Mr Lekota is brutal damaged his reputation and
- the ministers both mislead Parliament and the public by alleging that Mr. Lekota deployed soldiers to Khutsong well knowing that this was false. Furthermore, the Hon. Deputy Speaker has not ruled on point 2 despite Mr. Lekota’s written request to this effect.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE HOUSE
Parliament and the Constitution impose the duty on the members to make sharp and severe criticisms protected by privilege. The President enjoys no protection in this regard.
The Freedom to criticise the President in the House on issues of governance cannot only be by way of a substantive motion. The use of a substantive motion requires building of support and cannot be done by a single party on its own.
Robust criticism of the President and the whole cabinet is enshrined in the Constitution and allowed under the rules of the South African Parliament.
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