Pretoria – The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Wednesday lost its bid in the High Court in Pretoria to have the African National Congress (ANC) cadre deployment declared unlawful.
Delivering its judgment, the High Court threw out the case brought by the DA requesting it to declare that the ANC cadre deployment “unconstitutional and unlawful”.
The case was argued before a full bench of judges on 23 and 24 January 2023, when judgment was reserved.
In its ruling, the court stated: “It follows that there is nothing unconstitutional about a political party influencing the policy direction of a government, including the appointment of senior personnel to public service, so long as the public service is protected against being misused for partisan purposes”.
DA Federal Leader John Steenhuisen MP and the DA’s Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, Dr Leon Schreiber MP, were in attendance.
Afterward, the ANC said it would continue to implement its cadre deployment policy.
Last week, the Constitutional Court issued a groundbreaking judgment that ordered the ANC to hand over its cadre deployment records to the DA.
The ANC complied with the court ruling.
Meanwhile, the DA on Wednesday released what it described as “cadre deployment corruption documents” which it said it had “received so far”.
Link to the documents: https://download.da.org.za/ANC-cadre-documents-20240220.pdf
The DA said it was committed to upholding principles of public transparency.
“In line with this commitment, we have uploaded the cadre deployment minutes and documents which have so far been supplied to us to our website, allowing the public access to crucial information,” said Schreiber.
“We will continue to scrutinise the documents diligently to unveil the network of cadre deployment corruption and a racketeering syndicate that has corrupted and captured the state.
“To keep the public informed, we have scheduled a media briefing on Friday, during which we will comprehensively unpack the documents.
“This briefing will present our thorough analysis and announce significant next steps in our fight to end cadre deployment corruption.”
The DA said it remains steadfast in its pursuit of accountability and integrity within the political landscape, and we invite the public to stay engaged in this ongoing effort.
