Before we move on to the next Order of the Day, I would like to make a ruling on the following issues.
I wish to give a ruling on the declaration of vote made by the hon Mr Durr, who happens not to be in the House right now, regarding the adoption of the report of the Ad Hoc Select Committee on the Pan-African Parliament, on 2 November, yesterday.
According to the relevant section of the recording of yesterday's proceedings, the Deputy Chairperson of Committees, who was presiding at the time, said the following: ``In accordance with Rule 71 I shall first allow the provinces the opportunity to make their declarations of vote if they so wish.'' The hon Mr Durr then delivered a declaration of vote. The hon member did not indicate that he was speaking on behalf of his party. If he had done so, he would immediately have been ruled out of order since the decision was to be taken in terms of section 65 of the Constitution, that is on a provincial basis.
Furthermore, the head of the Western Cape delegation did not object to Mr Durr rising to make the declaration. The only reasonable conclusion was therefore that the hon Mr Durr was delivering a declaration of vote on behalf of the Western Cape province.
The second ruling concerns the issue of whether the hon member Mr Durr had referred to the Pan-African Parliament or had asked the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs a question relating to the Pan-African Parliament when she delivered her speech on the Abuja Treaty yesterday.
I have listened to the recording of proceedings and I am of the opinion that the hon Durr did not actually refer to the Pan-African Parliament nor did he pose a question to the hon the Minister thereon during her speech.
However, in the light of the fact that the Abuja Treaty and the matter of the Pan-African Parliament are closely related, there was nothing untoward in the Minister of Foreign Affairs referring to the Pan-African Parliament during the discussion of the Abuja Treaty.
Hon members, the behaviour displayed yesterday by some members of this House was noticed by the presiding officers and we felt that it was irresponsible of public representatives to behave in that way. It is our duty to remind hon members now and again that it is very important for us to keep up the respect and decorum of this Chamber.
Therefore we were forced to take a resolution to make the point that we enforce the maintenance of that decorum and respect by measures that we are going to take, because it is our duty to keep this House respectable and also to help hon members to be respectable as public representatives.