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In a brief judgment handed down this morning at the ConCourt, the application of the Labour Party was dismissed. The order merely indicated that the Labour Party’s “application for direct access is dismissed”. In handing down the order, it was said that the reasons will be provided later.

“We are baffled by this judgment”, said Labour Party Secretariat Krister Janse van Rensburg. “For the apex court of this country to disregard our application which was supported by nineteen other political parties, is almost unbelievable”, he said.

The application for direct access centred on the fact that the online submission system of the Independent Elections Commission (IEC) malfunctioned, leading to a substantial number of unrepresented parties not being able to finish uploading their documents to comply with section 27 of the Electoral Act.

According to the Labour Party’s summation based on media reports and announcements, there was a failure rate of around 62% for the 101 parties who attempted to upload on the system. The IEC, however, claims that the failure rate was only 35% as indicated in their answering affidavit.

“It seems to us that the court took an easy way out and avoided dealing with the merits of our case, rather focusing on the technical legal aspect of direct access”, said Van Rensburg. “We will await the detailed reasons for the judgment before we make further comment on this matter”, he concluded.

Issued by Labour Party