ANC appeals against Ekurhuleni regional conference judgment

The ANC is fighting back against a recent high court judgment that nullified the party’s “chaotic” Ekurhuleni eighth regional conference.

The ruling, delivered three weeks ago in favour of the party’s eight members, came after the ANC was challenged in the Johannesburg high court for excluding four branches from the conference.

The judgment also set aside all decisions and resolutions taken at the conference, held in Fourways, northern Johannesburg, in May.

On Friday, the party filed an application for leave to appeal at the high court arguing that the judgment has misinterpreted and conflated the party’s rules.

The ANC also says the members who took the party to court do not belong to the affected branches, as per party rules.

“The judgment … goes on to find that a subsequent provincial conference held by the ANC in Gauteng was a product of the regional conference, and accordingly, its outcomes are also unlawful. This finding is unwarranted. The ANC was never called upon to meet this case. The papers simply do not support this finding,” wrote the party’s attorney Krish Naidoo.

Naidoo said it is incorrect for the judgment to characterise the ANC’s stance regarding the 70% rule.

“The judgment asserts that the ANC adopted the stance that ‘provided the rights of 70% of members are accorded to them the election results of the conference must be accepted even if it conducts its processes unlawfully in relation to the minority of its members’. The ANC did not adopt such a position,” he said.

Naidoo said the party’s constitution rule 21.6 reads “each branch in good standing within a region shall be entitled to send delegates to the regional conference in proportion to its members” who carry the mandate from all branch members to represent their interest.

Gauge readiness

“The requirements of a good standing of a branch are distinct from that of a member. A member is merely required to belong to a branch with paid-up annual subscription fees. It was a misdirection for the court a quo to conflate good standing of members with that of branches.”

He said the 70% rule is a threshold used by the party to gauge the readiness of branch structures for conference.

“This is because as per the constitution of the ANC, branch delegates must constitute 90% of all attendees at its conferences,” said Naidoo. “What is critical is that the affected branches were equally afforded the opportunity to qualify for the conference.”

He said the affected branches knew by May 13 last year of their disqualification, and the branch executives had accepted such.

Naidoo said the affected branches, despite their disqualification, were allowed to participate in the conference but their votes were quarantined.

He said the court was wrong to conclude that the ANC had contended that a minority of its members could be subjected to unlawful conduct if 70% of the members were afforded full rights under the party’s constitution.

According to Naidoo, the court was also wrong to conclude that the ANC unlawfully disqualified the four branches after manipulation by the regional co-ordinator Thembinkosi Nciza, now the party’s Gauteng secretary.

“There was thus nothing strikingly unusual in Nciza, as the regional task team co-ordinator, raising his concerns with upper structures of the ANC regarding certain irregularities he felt attached to the branch biennial general meetings of the affected branches,” he said.

Naidoo said the eight applicants did not come from the disqualified branches. “None of the applicants hail from the so-called affected branches, being wards 40, 50, 56 and 106. The guidelines are clear. Members may only raise objections to disputes involving their branches.”

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