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Parliament, Wednesday, 15 March 2023 – “I am relieved. I am happy, after a grueling and strenuous exercise of the IPU Standing Committee on Human Rights, as they described a complaint of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) against the Speaker, as inadmissible.” These were the remarks of the National Assembly Speaker and leader of South Africa’s multiparty delegation to the 146th Assembly of the IPU in Bahrain, Ms Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, this afternoon.
Her remarks follow the announcement of the decision reached by the IPU Standing Committee on Human Rights during a plenary session of the IPU General Assembly that a complaint submitted by the EFF against the National Assembly Speaker was inadmissible. The complaint arose after members of the EFF were removed from the Chamber during the South African State of the Nation Address on the 9 February 2023. In Standing Committee hearings, the complainant and respondent each presented their side of the story, followed by questions and engagements to establish the facts of the allegations.
Speaker Mapisa-Nqakula said the complaint should have never been submitted to international parliamentary and human rights structures while internal processes had yet to be used to address the allegations about what transpired during the 9 February 2023 State of the Nation Address.
Speaker Mapisa-Nqakula said the Standing Committee had been thorough by going through all the evidence presented, including six-minute video footage of the incident and deliberating on the evidence, before concluding that the complaint was inadmissible. She said the Standing Committee appreciated the Parliament of South Africa’s transparency, openness and frankness during the hearing process. The Speaker also described allegations that she had called EFF protesters animals an affront to her value-based upbringing, her struggle for freedom and every part of her being. Such an allegation was purely intended to discredit her, she said.
ISSUED BY THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA.
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