Chairperson, the Committee on Private Members' Legislative Proposals and Special Petitions received a legislative proposal from hon Davidson on the prohibition of contracting between organs of state in the national sphere of governance and companies whose directors or shareholders are party-political office-bearers or public representatives of political parties.
The committee allowed hon Davidson to elaborate and explain why the proposal had to be considered. In the presentation we agreed that there was indeed a very fine line between the constitutional aspect and the proposal as it was.
We re-emphasised the criteria that should guide the committee when it did its work. If I may remind hon members, the criteria are the following six points: Does the legislative proposal go against the spirit and object of the Constitution? Does it seek to initiate legislation beyond the legislative competence of the National Assembly? Does it duplicate legislation awaiting consideration by the NA or the NCOP? Does it pre-empt similar legislation soon to be introduced by the national executive? Will it result in a money Bill? Will it result in frivolous legislation?
Working through this particular proposal, we had to invite the stakeholders because the matter of prohibiting contracting is not in the domain of only one portfolio. We invited the following stakeholders: the Presidency, the ethics committee, those who deal with the powers and privileges of members and Constitutional Development. Unfortunately, none of the above attended and we had to proceed without their input.
In our own determination, we were then advised by the Legal Services Unit that the proposed legislation would disadvantage the smaller parties of the NA, because in some parties you would find that their political office- bearers or their leaders were the only members available. As such, if we came up with this kind of law, we would be depriving them of doing business anywhere in the Republic, as long as it was state-related. We therefore came to the conclusion that, without tampering with the constitutional rights of individuals and Members of Parliament to do business, we need not recommend this particular proposal to go forward. We are therefore recommending that it should not be given the opportunity to go forward.
There was no debate.