Parliament had failed to protect its oversight role compromised during the lockdown, says law expert
Advocate Erin-Dianne Richards has encouraged the public to educate themselves on governance and its relation to the constitution as a debate over the power held by national command council continues to intensify.
High-profile advocate Erin-Dianne Richards has urged the public to prioritise self-education on governance and its alignment to the constitution of South Africa, on Wednesday.
This as the debate over the “lack of parliamentary oversight role” on the newly formed national coronavirus command council (NCCC), which takes decisions of national interest, continues to heat up.
For over two months the Presidency has entrusted the NCCC, which consist of cabinet members, to take decisions on the governance of the country during the Covid-19 outbreak.
During a virtual press briefing by the South African Institute of Race Relations, Richards argued that parliament was responsible for overseeing decisions taken by cabinet, and an inability to do the same to the NCCC was troublesome.
ALSO READ: Lockdown – a time to check your finances
“The problem is that the NCCC only consists of about 17 ministers. That is not the entire national executive. Where are the remaining ministers? On its current composition, the NCCC appears to us to constitute a centralisation of power that is impermissible under the disaster management act,”
She said the lack of parliament’s criticism on the constituted power by the NCCC weakens democracy.
“When there is an unchecked concentration of power, you cannot properly scrutinise the rationality for the decisions taken. If there was oversight over decisions taken we might have had a more rational and less damaging lockdown.”
She said the constitution mattered in these difficult times to ensure decisions taken by the NCCC “would not harm millions of lives”.
“In a situation like this one needs to understand how the country is governed and what the ramifications of the wrong decision may be.
“We need to protect the constitution, we need to equip ourselves with knowledge of how the country is run and question whether it’s in alignment with the constitution.”
She raised her concern over the current governing of the state that it might pose risks of the abuse of power.
“Our constitution gives us the right to manage the abuse of power through parliament overseeing the executive.”
Richards said with NCCC not being scrutinised by parliament it placed liberal democracy in jeopardy.
She said parliament had failed to protect its oversight role compromised during the lockdown by not taking legal steps.
This happens as the DA filed court papers, challenging the constitutionality of the lockdown regulations.
Notice: Coronavirus reporting at Caxton Local Media aims to combat fake news.
Dear reader,
As your local news provider, we have the duty of keeping you factually informed on Covid-19 developments. As you may have noticed, mis- and disinformation (also known as “fake news”) is circulating online. Caxton Local Media is determined to filter through the masses of information doing the rounds and to separate truth from untruth in order to keep you adequately informed. Local newsrooms follow a strict pre-publication fact-checking protocol. A national task team has been established to assist in bringing you credible news reports on Covid-19.
Readers with any comments or queries may contact National Group Editor Irma Green (irma@caxton.co.za) or Legal Adviser Helene Eloff (helene@caxton.co.za).
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
