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Despite the EFF’s insistence that section 25 of the Constitution will be amended before next year’s general elections, the ANC insists that there is simply not enough time.
The final report compiled by the joint constitutional review committee and adopted this morning reads that: “Parliament must table, process and pass a constitutional amendment bill before the end of the fifth (current) democratic Parliament in order to allow for expropriation without compensation.”
In a statement welcoming the adoption of the report, the EFF, which first made the call for the constitutional amendment, quoted the same recommendation and called for the bill to be tabled and passed by the fifth Parliament.
However, in a press conference held by the ANC caucus in Parliament this afternoon, Vincent Smith said that the wording in the recommendations was not set in stone.
“Maybe the wording was not proper English but the intention is for that body which is set up, whether it is the justice committee or an ad hoc committee, to be given a mandate. What is very clear is that there will be no voting on the constitutional amendment before elections. I hope that clarifies it. There will be no voting on it, it is just not practically possible,” Smith said.
“If you go to section 74 it actually gives you the process that must be followed. There must be a 30-day gazetting [period], there will be public hearings, then another 30 days and you just know if you do that ... it is not going to happen. We were saying Parliament must set up the vehicle, the vehicle must be given the mandate and go from there.”
The land question is one that forms the cornerstone of the EFF’s offering at the polls and, more recently, has become a hot issue within the ANC. Smith rejected claims that the resolution to amend the Constitution had anything to do with next year’s general elections.
“This is clearly not a sham for electioneering purposes because people who understands know that the process of actually amending the Constitution is not going to happen until after the elections. Not because we don’t want to but because the process as laid out in the Constitution makes it impossible. So this is not about electioneering. If it was we would have done this thing six months ago to meet the election date deadline,” he said.
He added that even if the ANC was going to go back to the next Parliament with significantly fewer numbers, the matter would still be raised because South Africans from across all backgrounds wanted accelerated land reform.
It will be up to the next Parliament to resuscitate the work done by the current Parliament. This would include the process to amend section 25 of the Constitution.
Meanwhile, opposition parties opposed to the amendment – including the DA, ACDP, IFP, FF Plus and Cope – shied away from the legal action they had been threatening as early as this week. The parties said that they reserved their rights with regard to what they call, “a flawed process”, where some of the written submissions were disregarded by the joint constitutional review committee.
The group said they would continue participating in the parliamentary process and would take advice on what their options are.
Cope’s Deidre Carter said that the foundation, which is the Bill of Rights, of the country was being, “chiseled away”.
The FF Plus’ Corne Mulder said the recommendation of the joint constitutional review committee was “scary stuff”.
“This has the potential to make South Africa a pariah state in the world out there ... There is a definition when you take someone else’s stuff without compensation, I won’t say it now,” Mulder said.
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