Cape Town - Parliament has agreed to go ahead with the impeachment of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane after members of the section 194 committee said there was no court interdict halting the process.
This came after Mkhwebane wrote to the committee that she intended filing an interdict court application.
Mkhwebane has also gone to the Constitutional Court to file a rescission application.
President Cyril Ramaphosa had initially given Mkhwebane 10 working days to say why she should not be suspended.
But the rescission application is to be heard only at the end of April.
All political parties except the EFF and ATM on Tuesday opposed the decision of the section 194 committee to continue with the impeachment process while the rescission application is still to be heard.
ANC MPs said they wanted the impeachment of Mkhwebane to continue because there was no court interdict.
Chairperson of the committee Qubudile Dyantyi also said there was no need to stop the impeachment because Parliament was doing its work, and Ramaphosa was also doing his own work in terms of the suspension of the public protector.
“Nothing that we are doing here is illegal. We have embarked on a Constitutional process,” said Dyantyi.
Earlier Parliament’s legal adviser Siviwe Njikela told the committee there is nothing wrong with the section 194 committee continuing with its work.
He said Mkhwebane had sent a letter threatening to interdict Parliament from going ahead with the impeachment process. But it had not yet been received.
“We haven’t received that application, we are hoping in the next couple days or hours that that application will come. As I am speaking to you chairperson, all I have in front of me is an application for a rescission of the decision of the Constitutional Court.
“There is no interdict or application for interdict. As we speak now no application for an interdict has been filed. If the application is filed, upon assessment of that application Parliament will have to decide whether it opposes it or not. Given the decisions that have been taken it will appear that you will be entitled to oppose it,” said Njikela.
Members of the section 194 committee agreed to continue with the impeachment of Mkhwebane.
Parliament has since appointed advocate Nazreen Bawa, SC, to be the evidence leader in the Mkhwebane impeachment inquiry.
She will be assisted by advocate Ncumisa Mayosi.
Political Bureau