EFF leader Julius Malema has won the first round of his latest legal battle against parliament as the high court in Cape Town suspended a sanction against him until the process that led to the sanction is reviewed.

Monday was the deadline for Malema to apologise to the National Assembly, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) and judge Keoagile Elias Matojane for his question during the JSC interview process that related to himself.

“The first to the fourth respondents are interdicted from implementing the sanction contained in the report of the ethics committee pending the outcome of the review application,” said acting judge Nolundi Nyati.

The court said Malema should lodge his intended review application within 20 days from the date of the order.

It ordered the first, second, third and fourth respondents to pay the costs of Malema’s application jointly and severally, the one paying the other to be absolved.

Malema approached the high court last week with an urgent application to suspend the implementation of the order that he should apologise, and that he should not be found to be in contempt if he does not apologise by Monday.

He said he will challenge the report of parliament’s joint committee on ethics and members’ interest which found he breached MPs’ ethics code in his questioning of Matojane during the JSC interviews in April last year. 

The ethics committee found Malema should not have questioned the judge on a matter that personally involved him and his party, namely a defamation lawsuit against the EFF brought by former finance minister Trevor Manuel.

In his affidavit to the high court, Malema said he believed the ethics committee’s findings were erroneous and his rights would be severely and unjustly prejudiced if he is bound by the committee’s findings.

“The reason an interdict is necessary to protect my rights is because if I comply with the report, any further rights I would have had in respect of the review [regardless of its merits] would be pre-empted,” he said.

“Furthermore, my failure to comply with the report [absent an interdict] also subjects me to a greater risk of punitive sanction by parliament itself [being found in contempt].

“The possible sanction includes my suspension from parliament for up to a month, including being deprived of my salary.”

In response, National Assembly speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said the urgency was self-created. She argued that Malema’s application was not urgent, as he had known since May 2021 that parliament had received a complaint about his conduct at the JSC hearings.

“Yet, the applicant did not take issue with the competence of parliament to investigate the matter,” she said.

Mapisa-Nqakula also argued that parliament does have the competence and authority to investigate the complaint against Malema and to determine it in terms of the Code of Ethical Conduct and Disclosure of Members’ Interests for Assembly and Permanent Council Members, as Malema serves on the JSC by virtue of being a member of the National Assembly and is designated as such by the assembly.

“It follows that if the applicant had not been a member of the National Assembly, he would not have been designated to serve on the JSC and would not so serve.”

Mapisa-Nqakula said while serving on the JSC Malema remained bound by the assembly's code.

The ethical duties of members in terms of the code do not exclude the conduct of an MP, and the code applies to all members irrespective of where their conduct takes place or the other capacity in which it occurs.

She said the National Assembly was enforcing its code against its member.

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