ConCourt reserves judgement on Tshwane administration
The hearing took almost eight hours, and the court was adjourned and judgement reserved.
The matter of the dissolution of the Tshwane metro council and subsequent placing of the capital city under administration was heard in the Constitutional Court on Thursday.
The hearing took almost eight hours, and the court was adjourned and judgement reserved.
While the DA and provincial legal representatives’ arguments were at the opposite ends over the matter, both agreed that the extended stay of the administrators was due to the Electoral Commission of South Africa.
The stay of the 10 administrators beyond the constitutional period of 90 days, was pinned to the commission’s postponing the elections due to Covid-19, the court heard as both legal representatives submitted this reasoning when questioned on the five-month stay.
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Provincial government legal representative Tembeka Ngcukaitobi dismissed claims the provincial government was behind the extended stay of the administrators, which DA’s legal representative advocate Steven Budlender agreed to.
Moving on to convincing the court the on “appropriateness” of the dissolution of Tshwane by the provincial government, Ngcukaitoibi said that the dissolution was the only method the state could have used to deal with the constantly collapsing council meetings.
“There was no mayor, no mayoral committee, no city manager, no budget and the meetings entrusted to attend to these kept on collapsing, there was no other way to deal with this other than to dissolve the council.”
At the heart of all the administrative crisis, Ngcukaitobi said the “service delivery was crumbling”.
He gave examples of the Hammanskraal water issue and that of the Wonderboom airport.
Ngcukaitobi told the court, with chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng also present, the provincial government had “tried to implement softer methods when dealing with the matter before the dissolution”.
But Budlender argued against this and said the provincial government used a “sledgehammer to crack a nut”
He centralised his argument on the basis that the provincial government never gave a warning to the metro or considered any of their proposed solutions to the metro’s troubles.
He said there was no procedural fairness in the implementation of the administration and that it was a drastic measure and other constitutional rights could have been implemented to deal with the matter, that were “less intrusive”.
Defending the high court’s decision regarding the ANC and EFF councillors at the council, which Ngcukaitobi said was a breach of the freedom of expression and right to protest, Budlender said the councillors were bound by the code of conduct they signed when accepting duties.
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Meanwhile, the EFF representative advocate Ishmael Semenya argued that the provincial government did not need to give any warning as long as exceptional circumstances allowing the state to implement dissolution decision were there.
The electoral commission had yet to respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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