ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula
Image: FILE
The ANC’s Eastern Cape Provincial Task Team (PTT) has been declared unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
Judge Vuyokazi Pamella Noncembu handed down the judgment in the Makhanda High Court on Thursday.
It delivers a direct blow to ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula and Eastern Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane, who served as convener of the task team.
All 40 PTT members, including Mabuyane, have been interdicted from acting as the ANC’s Eastern Cape leadership or from representing the province in any ANC activities.
The ANC was also ordered to pay punitive legal costs.
"All decisions taken by the fifth to forty-fourth respondents are declared unlawful, invalid, and of no force or effect," the judgment said.
"The fifth to forty-fourth respondents are interdicted from representing the Eastern Cape province in any structure, function, meeting, conference, or activity of the ANC at any level whatsoever.
"It is declared the announcement of the appointment of the PTT to replace the elected Provincial Executive Committee in the ANC in the Eastern Cape is unconstitutional, unlawful, violates the ANC's constitution and be reviewed and set aside."
Mbalula appointed the PTT in May to run the ANC in the Eastern Cape after the PEC, the province’s elected leadership structure, reached the end of its term.
A new provincial conference had not yet been held to elect a successor.
The ANC had attempted to hold its 10th provincial elective conference in March, but three ANC members — Lwazi Rotya, Sinethemba Mpande and Nompumelelo Mzotywa — successfully obtained a court order blocking it.
They cited irregularities in branch meetings and the unfair exclusion of members ahead of the conference.
With the conference stopped and the existing leadership's term expired, Mbalula announced the PTT as a temporary solution.
He insisted the move was lawful and necessary.
The three members went back to court, arguing the PTT was being used to get around the existing court order and that it violated their constitutional rights as ANC members.
Noncembu agreed, finding the PTT had violated the Constitution as well as the ANC’s own rules, and ruled that all its decisions were invalid.
IOL News