I'm informed that parties have requested the opportunity to make declarations on this matter.
Declarations of vote:
The Chapter 9 Institutions are independent and outside of government, which is why they are appointed by and accountable to Parliament. Today, we adopt the ad hoc committee's recommendation to properly bring them home where they belong by establishing a unit on the constitutional and other independent bodies under the wing of the Speaker.
Parliament has not looked after the Chapter 9 Institutions properly, with the exception of the Auditor-General, who has a dedicated committee, and one or two others. The Chapter 9 Institutions have often been reduced to perfunctory hearings once or twice a year and are frequently neglected, specially by the admittedly overworked Justice Committee. For example, the Human Rights Commission Act predates the final Constitution and is hopelessly inadequate. It also provided our previous President with an excuse not to appoint the 11 commissioners we voted in at the last cycle when, in fact, he had no discretion on the matter. The Human Rights Commission has, therefore, been working with five commissioners all these years and lately with four.
So it is symptomatic of Parliament's whole attitude to the Chapter 9 Institutions that the ad hoc committee report itself, this book, suffered the same neglect. We finished the work in July 2007, but this report very nearly expired with this Parliament.
We therefore welcome this resolution because the introduction of the unit now establishes a beachhead for further attention to be paid by the next Parliament to the book full of recommendations from Sello Dithebe, the hon Carol Johnson, the hon Jane Matsomela, a few others and me, as well as the little big man who likes publicity.
The very best recommendation in the entire report is repeated in the resolution, to my delight, and it is that money voted to the institution should be dealt with as part of Parliament's Vote. Eddie Trent, who drove this issue in our ranks with me, will be as delighted as I am.
Bodies that are outside government should not be dependent on Ministries for the defence of their budget requests and the transfer of monies. We were delighted when the Treasury took the same view, because the fact is that the departments soon presume that bodies to which they transfer funds are agencies that are accountable to them - and that's where the trouble starts. These bodies are accountable to us, we should look after them and I hope that this report is dealt with fully when the next Parliament comes back. In the meantime, we support this resolution with great acclaim.
Chairperson, much of what I wanted to say has already been said by Ms Smuts. I agree with her, so I won't repeat it.
It was obviously necessary after almost 15 years of democracy to revise the Chapter 9 Institutions to determine whether they are still successful or not, and if so, to what degree, and what recommendations we should make.
I was privileged to serve on the committee as the representative of the IFP, and I wish to ... [Interjections.] Yes, I attended all of them and I heard that in the Chief Whips' Forum you said that we are not attending the Justice Committee while you bloody well know that we sit in the reference room. [Interjections.] I think you are very stupid!
Hon Van der Merwe, withdraw the word "bloody".
Of course, I will withdraw it. There are many other words I can think of to replace it. I wish to pay tribute to Prof Kader Asmal ...
Chairperson, I rise on a point of order. Is it parliamentary for hon Van der Merwe to refer to hon members as stupid?
It is common cause that we all know that, Chair.
No, no, Mr Van der Merwe. Withdraw the word "stupid".
Yes, I withdraw that, sir. But I think Mr Jeffery got the message.
Chairperson, the ad hoc committee had a very wide focus and we did a comprehensive review. We looked at, amongst other things, the mandate of the Chapter 9 bodies, their enabling legislation, budgets, reporting, levels of parliamentary oversight, public participation and involvement, as well as the appointments in terms of the office of commissioners.
As for the delay in the report, as members clearly can see, is not the type of report that one can pass in a committee, put in the ATCs and pass in the House the next day, simply because of the far-reaching implications and also because some of the recommendations require very long-term interventions, possibly legislative amendments, changes to budgets and reporting and possibly even constitutional amendments.
One of the problems that we identified is that there seems to be a lack of co-ordination, that the various Chapter 9s report to different portfolio committees, and for that reason we tried to come up with creative ways in which to solve this problem. We therefore thought to put in place a unit in the office of the Speaker as a central point to co-ordinate all the various functions and operations of the Chapter 9 committees.
This will enable Parliament to act proactively. For example, just to alert the House that next year in September, the terms of office of all the remaining commissioners on the Human Rights Commission will be expiring. We don't want to leave the Human Rights Commission in a situation where it cannot function because the appointments have not been made timeously. So what the Unit in the office of the Speaker will do is it will put Parliament in a position to act proactively and to make the appointments timeously. We also believe that it will strengthen parliamentary oversight.
Just to respond to the hon Smuts on what she said about the attitude of Parliament: Parliament goes out of its way to strengthen the Chapter 9 Institutions and to assist and protect their independence and their dignity. For example, the House will recall that not too long ago when there were operational problems in the office of the Public Protector, this House established a special ad hoc committee to assist the Public Protector to sort out those problems. We then reconvened six months later to check on its progress.
With regard to the justice committee, we have taken up the issue about the Human Rights Commission Act. The Department of Justice has prepared a draft Bill that they will put to the justice committee.
I would like to thank Prof Asmal in absentia, members of the committee who worked extremely hard and also our support staff. Let us as Parliament remember that the Constitution in section 181 enjoins all of us to support, protect and strengthen the independence, dignity and effectiveness of all our Chapter 9s, and let us continue to do so. Thank you. [Applause.]
I move:
That the House -
1) appreciates the extensive work done by the Ad Hoc Committee on Review of Chapter 9 and Associated Institutions in the execution of its mandate;
2) recognises that a number of the recommendations contained in the Report will have far-reaching implications for Chapter 9 and Associated Institutions;
3) notes that the Ad Hoc Committee, among others, recommends the establishment of a properly resourced Unit to co-ordinate all interactions between the National Assembly and state institutions strengthening democracy;
4) adopts the recommendation in the Report pertaining to the establishment of the Unit on Constitutional Institutions and other Statutory Bodies;
5) urges speedy establishment of the Unit on Constitutional Institutions and other Statutory Bodies and recommends that its location, structure and mandate be determined by the Speaker, having given due consideration to the National Assembly's constitutional obligations with regard to Chapter 9 institutions, associated bodies and other statutory bodies;
6) urges further that consideration be given to the implementation of the recommendation in the Report pertaining to budgets of the bodies reviewed being contained in a separate programme in Parliament's budget vote, as envisaged by the Ad Hoc Committee; and
7) resolves that the rest of the Report be held in abeyance with a view to allowing the Fourth Parliament to consider it in a manner it deems appropriate.
Motion agreed to.