Mr Speaker, the DA asks the National Assembly to nominate Dr Gladstone Sandi Baai as a member of the Human Rights Commission. Dr Baai is a PhD: Philosophy (Durham), who played a leading role in establishing ethics guidelines in the Public Service for more than a decade after the adoption of the final Constitution. He served as Director of Professional Ethics at the office of the Public Service Commission, the Chapter 10 institution. We would like to send him now to a Chapter 9 institution, the SA Human Rights Commission, SAHRC, where, in our view, his skills in developing the monitoring of the code - which he himself develop-and in research makes him a good choice for functions such as the Human Rights Commission's special constitutional duty of holding government's departments to account for the implementation of the socioeconomic rights. Among the many books that he authored and co-authored is a title called Snatching Bread from the Mouth of the Poor: Ethics and Corruption, which I rather think says it all.
May I say that Dr Baai struck me as a person of substance; human rights commissioners must be such persons. Their entire impact and effect on society rests on the moral authority they bring to bear, because they can make no binding orders, they are not a court of law. They command and exercise moral suasion - as the previous commission under Jody Kollapen, Leon Wessels, Karthy Govender and a few others so successfully did - they command moral suasion or nothing at all.
We therefore need Dr Baai. It is notable that a person specialising in ethics takes the place of a person who you were asked to appoint last year, until Cope drew to our attention, rather late in the day and moreover erroneously as to exact fact, that Adv Mpulwana, who was the subject of the motion we have just adopted, had been discharged from the employ of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, TRC.
Thanks to the intercession of a concerned citizen in the Eastern Cape, the true facts and the actual High Court judgment in the matter between the TRC vs Adv Mpulwana were provided to me, and therefore to the Portfolio Committee on Justice. We gave the appropriate opportunity for a hearing. We are bound, as is this House, by the unchallenged judgment of the High Court that the advocate by his nondisclosure of his employment at that time in the Eastern Cape Provincial Administration fraudulently misrepresented to the TRC his fitness and propriety.
May I use this opportunity, Sir, to urge party spokespersons to present shortlists for appointment to their caucuses well before the final decision needs ratification, because, although we are indebted to the hon Adams for raising the issue in however lacking a manner, it was brought very late. This is not the first time, in respect of a Chapter 9 institution, that inappropriate persons have in fact been selected when party caucus members, who had insight or experience, could have averted such choices. Unfortunately, it has happened before. In this case I imagine the hon Thozamile Botha may have had something to do with our colleague the hon Adams's warning, but it came only when we were asking the House to vote on a finally negotiated and agreed upon list. At least Cope has helped: in other cases, it was too late and the consequences which duly unfolded were unfortunately predictable.
So, we thank the House for the adoption of the previous motion for sending this back to us at Justice and we ask the House to vote for Dr Gladstone Sandi Baai. [Applause.]