Statement by George Michalakis MP – DA Parliamentary Leader:
The DA maintains that the parliamentary impeachment process must not stall while President Ramaphosa’s review application unfolds before the courts. Parliament must be allowed to conduct it’s oversight and accountability role unobstructed.
The President has now filed court papers in his Phala Phala review application, as he said he would do, and he has committed to request that the matter be dealt with on an expedited basis.
Parliament must urgently set the rules and Terms of Reference (TOR) for the impeachment committee, and the DA will hold it accountable to do so without delay. The committee must begin its work. The Constitutional Court has, separate from the merits of the Phala Phala matter, ordered Parliament to fulfil this task and Parliament should not be stopped from doing its work.
We further note that the President, in his court papers, indicated that he would interdict Parliament, should it proceed with the process. The President knows full well that there is a long way ahead for the parliamentary processes to be put in place before the hearing itself will commence. Such a step would therefore come down to the Head of State a) actively preventing Parliament from complying with a constitutional court order and b) be nothing but delay tactics. The result would be incredibly damaging to the reputation of Parliament, at the hands of the President.
The country cannot afford for this matter to be dragged out unnecessarily.
Xstormx
So I\’m real good friends with this guy named Juan Ted. Now, Juan is a pretty astonishing guy. He can steal ANYTHING he wants to. Literally anything. It could be the shirt off your back, the wallet in your pocket, or I\’m even sure he\’d find a way to steal your house (And your spouse too). So anyway, one day Juan and I are sitting around watching TV, and they announced that the hope diamond will not be on display anymore and is now getting moved to an undisclosed location. So as we hear this, Juan says \”I\’m gonna steal it\”. Now I know how good Juan is at this kind of stuff, so I just tell him good luck and he goes on his way. Eventually he narrows his search down to a small cave in South Africa. When Juan gets there, he doesn\’t see any guards or anything outside the cave, so he just walks in assuming he was wrong about where the diamond was. He wanders around for a while until he sees a long lit hallway with the hope diamond at the end of it. Confident in his abilities, he strolls over to the diamond and picks it up before realizing its a trap! Suddenly, red lights flashed, armed men came running out, sirens went off. You could hear one of the men say under his breath \”We finally caught Juan Ted.\” But Juan, being the best thief in the world, said \”Not quite. On the count of three, I will disappear.\” As the men looked around confused, Juan began to count. \”Uno. Dos.\” And he disappeared without a tres.
Mad Irishman
Fun South African Fact: South Africa in size is three times the size of Texas and five times the size of Japan.