THE DA bid to have ANC's cadre deployment policy declared unconstitutional has been dismissed with cost.
Judge Aubrey Ledwaba delivered the brief judgment on Wednesday, 21 February, at the North Gauteng High Court.
This comes after the DA scored a victory in the constitutional court last week in which it wanted the ANC to produce its records on cadre deployments dating back to 2013.
The ANC released its records on Monday, 19 February.
Reacting to the judgment outside the high court, DA leader John Steenhuisen expressed disappointment in the judgment.
He said as the party that respects the rule of law and the constitution, they respect the judgment; however, they do believe that there are numbers of errors in law and interpretations in this judgment.
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“We believe that this is a significant underestimation of the scourge of cadre deployment and its terrible effect on the South African lives. It is also flies in the face of the comments made by the then deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo at the Zondo Commission where he said it should be illegal for everybody to influence the appointment of people based on nothing other than the party affiliation,” he said.
He said they maintain that the practice of cadre deployment is the violation of constitution provision which states that nobody should be discriminated based on the party affiliation.
“We believe the judgment has missed out on this significantly,” he said.
Steenhuisen said they would appeal the matter all the way to the Constitutional Court.
“We will appeal it to the SCA (Supreme Court of Appeal) and potentially directly to the constitutional court,” he said.
He said the silver bullet to ending the cadre deployment is for them to be voted in as the governing party during the elections and voting out the ANC.
ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula said the high court's ruling on ANC cadre deployment is a win for the political party autonomy and ensures that public institutions are staffed by those who align with the ruling party's policies and goals.
