Encouraging participation in Rules review process

Meeting report

The Chairperson welcomed members. He said that he was particularly disturbed that the review process had not yet stimulated the necessary vibe and eagerness in the broader society, in Parliament and within parties as the committee hoped. The public made very few submissions and these were done only at the very last minute and close to the deadline. The submissions were also very limited in terms of the focus areas which the submissions covered. It was important for the committee to find ways in which the debate could be stimulated and revived. He asked committee members if they had any suggestions regarding the stimulation of the review process.

A former Member of Parliament, Mr M Ellis, said that he was concerned if there was a genuine commitment on the part of the committee and by Parliament as a whole to seriously rewrite the rules of Parliament. There needed to be a real determination that what was being done was in the best interest of the People. The danger of the committee not doing its job was that the rules of Parliament were going to be written by the courts and not by Parliament itself. There was the need for a greater commitment by Parliament to champion the review of the rules. It was a massive task but the committee had to find a way of stimulating itself and Parliament as a whole to do the job which was required.

A former Member of Parliament, Ms S Seaton, said that she was concerned about the fact that the African National Congress, being the ruling party, had not yet made a submission on the review process. An easy way could be to see what results came out from the meeting, but she was of the opinion that it was necessary for the parties to make their submissions. A big question was whether Members of Parliament had taken their role as representatives of the people seriously. Many Members of Parliament did not understand the Constitution and the rules of Parliament. It was important for political parties to make clear to their members the implications of not adhering to the rules and not taking their constitutional responsibility seriously. The fact that there were only two submissions made by the political parties was proof that the whole review process was not being taken seriously by parties and members.

The Chairperson said that assumptions could be made about what people knew or did not know but the major issue was whether the committee had been able to stimulate interest in the review of the rules. That was a dilemma which needed to be corrected.

A former Member of Parliament, Mr M Mangena, said that it was important for the committee not to focus on a wholesale revision of the rules. The cumbersome process of reviewing all the rules could be the very reason why the public and other Members of Parliament were not very interested in the process. What was needed was the identification of problematic areas which made Parliament not to work as it should, and get parties to agree that those were the critical areas of focus. Thereafter, the committee could champion the process. The idea of going through all the rules might not be very stimulating to Members and the public at large.

A member from the DA said that the party had held a workshop where its members came up with suggestions which had been submitted to the committee in a general document and he was of the opinion that such a process should be followed by other parties to get views from the members. Members from other committees could get their inputs submitted via their various parties. The Chairperson could make a plea to the parties to come up with such suggestions and documents.

Mr M Mdakane (ANC) said that his view was that Members and parties should be allowed another opportunity to re-look at the matter and revert to the committee. This was going to encourage members to take interest in the process. He was not sure if the dullness or lack of vibrancy in Parliament was due to the rules. What impact was the review going to have on the activity and vibrancy of Parliament? There was the risk of engaging into the long exercise of reviewing all the rules when that was not really the problem which Parliament was facing. What could be done was to change relevant aspects of the rules as suggested by members and parties – but an entire, clause-by-clause review was not necessary. This could only be done if the committee was very sure that it was the rules which were causing Parliament to be dull and inactive. The Committee could identify certain chapters which were in need of review and start with those rather than trying to amend all the rules. Engaging all Members of Parliament in a discussion on all the rules was going to be a long, tedious process. The parties could convene workshops and share the views as raised in the various workshops. The committee could also make proposals and give these to all the parties which in turn could debate on these proposals.

Mr M Oriani Ambrosini (IFP) said that there was the need to improve on the rules to make them more consistent and to make Parliament function better. There was the need for determination on the part of the committee and to ensure that the rules reflected the spirit of the committee. His concern was that the committee was just being choreographic about the whole process of the review of rules. He feared that after all the long debates what was going to happen was that the staff was going to come up with a draft review and that was going to become the rules of Parliament. Such a situation was not going to address the major problem. There were structural problems with the rules and challenges relating to the understanding of the rules and the hierarchy of the sources of law which was established and confirmed by the Constitution. He was very uncomfortable with the fact that the ANC had not come up with a submission on the process. He was going to be very disappointed and upset if at the end of the process a review was done which had the same structural and foundational errors which were now affecting the rules.

A former Member of Parliament, Mr Farouk Cassim, said that the only way to eat an elephant was to take it one bite at a time. Rules came about by political impetus and the committee needed to be on the lookout for what needed to be brought in on the rules as a review. If the committee had decided to take the review process “one bite at a time”, it would have gone through the various ideas and set them out for input from the parties on the relevance and practicality of the suggestions. The committee could also go “chapter by chapter” so that the review process could be progressive. It was important for the committee to take chapters or issues and deal with them so that even if the work of the committee was not completed, at least a substantial portion of the work was done so that future Parliaments need conclude only the parts not done.

The Chairperson said that he introduced the discussion as a form of an intervention with the view of stimulating the review process. In all the options which could be taken, the committee did not have to be blind to the people who were being represented. What was emerging from the suggestions from Members was that there was an acknowledgement that there was the need for something to be done to approach the process differently. He assured Mr Oriani Ambrosini that the review process was not going to be just a mechanical exercise but it was going to be a profound engagement on the review of the National Assembly rules. The mandate of the Sub-Committee of the Rules Committee was to perform a comprehensive review of the rule book. This necessitated a look at the rule book as a whole.

One of the ways in which the review process could be stimulated in Parliament was to ask members to tell the committee what it wanted to see in revised rules. Another way could be to ask leading questions so that Members could be focused on topics relating to the rules. Parties could open up to their own members by having suggestion boxes for Members to throw in ideas about the review process.

The Chairperson proposed that, considering this was the last meeting of the year, the committee could formulate a recommendation to all the parties to reflect on the body of rules as a whole as against the Constitution with a view to making concrete proposals as to which areas of the rules needed improvement. They could also indicate the manner in which the improvements could be effected without necessarily attempting to rewrite the rules in a technical form. The committee could also formulate a set of probing questions which could direct such input from parties and members. The committee could delegate the responsibility of formulating the questions and proposals to a smaller group of members.

Mr Mdakane said that if the committee wanted the Members of Parliament to engage in the review process, it would be wise to provide them with probing questions and key areas of focus. Members could also add on issues of relevance which might have been missed by the committee. The committee could also adopt the approach of concluding chapters and sending it to the various parties for comment.

Mr Ellis said that the Committee was now making progress on the way forward. The committee needed to establish what kind of Parliament and rules were desired. The list of questions to enhance engagement in the review process had to be drawn up by a group which was committed to driving the process in a particular direction.

The Chairperson said that the Committee was going to select some of its members to form a task team which was going to formulate the questions.

After the nominations and selections, the committee decided on a task team comprised of Mr RM Mdakane, Ms SV Kaylan, Adv MI Malale, Mr M Ellis, Mr MG Oriani Ambrosini, Ms JD Killian, Ms S Seaton and Mr JH Jeffery. The technical staff of the committee was going to be part task team. The task team was going to be convened by Mr RM Mdakane.

The Chairperson said that the mandate of the task team was to facilitate greater participation with Parliament by way of formulating probing questions and to agree on how to engage the parties in the review process. The task team also had the mandate to technically begin to engage on the various issues which the Sub-Committee had to deal with. It was however not necessary to be very prescriptive about how the task team was going to conduct its work.

The Chairperson said that the idea was that the team was going to be working even during the recess period. The rest of the matters on the agenda would be dealt with by the task team. These included Summary of the previous meeting and Order in public meetings and Rules of debate (Chapter 5).

The meeting was adjourned.