Dianne Kohler Barnard elected chairperson of Parliament’s Petitions Committee

Statement by Baxolile Nodada MP – Deputy Chief Whip of the Democratic Alliance:

The Democratic Alliance welcomes the election of the DA’s Dianne Kohler Barnard MP as the Chairperson of Parliament’s newly-constituted Committee on Executive Undertakings and Petitions in the National Assembly.

This brings to 11 the number of Committees in Parliament now chaired by the Democratic Alliance, where the DA is ensuring that the business of parliament moves efficiently and in the best interests of the people of South Africa.

Kohler Barnard now chairs an incredibly important committee which will connect citizen concerns and demands with their Parliament that must be accessible.

In our Constitutional Democracy, anyone may petition Parliament and the DA will now chair this committee and will facilitate South Africans exercising their Constitutional rights.

In a landmark Constitutional Court ruling of 2012, the late IFP MP Dr Mario Oriani-Ambrosini caused the court to declare that prior rules of Parliament’s National Assembly governing the then Committee on Private Members’ Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions were unconstitutional, and since then the committee has not functioned.

The DA looks forward to a committee which, unlike its predecessor, will not be accused of being a committee “where good ideas go to die” or one accused of being used to stifle parliamentary debate, but one that now facilitates executive undertakings and citizen petitions efficiently.

The DA believes that citizens must have improved access to Parliament, and we will do all in our power to advance this.