Hon Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to extend my deep gratitude to members of my committee for their collaborative work, and I would also like to thank members particularly for working together in seeking to advance the interest of our people, which is in South Africa's national interest.
Criticism has been levelled against us, which I humbly accept. Even in our caucus, where we should have done a bit more research before we made the decision that we arrived at. In our caucus, I suggested that we could have just as easily googled it using modern technology and maybe found out that there were things that we needed to have known, which we didn't know.
What was fatal to the recommendation that we made earlier was the fact of nondisclosure. We did not get involved with the merits or demerits of the case. We were basically interested in disclosure because that had not happened. We felt that we did not have a choice but to recommend to this Parliament the withdrawal of the recommendation.
The ANC supports Dr S Baai, as the candidate who came out second best in our interviews. He is the son of Xhosa people from the Eastern Cape and a highly gifted intellectual. He comes from the poorest of the poor. He will bring all those skills and temperament into the job of Commissioner of the SA Human Rights Commission. He is highly recommended and I wish to use this opportunity to urge the House to support this candidate.
We are interested in ensuring that the Chapter 9 institutions are strengthened in whatever way possible. It is my view that we should not try and localise them only to ourselves as the Justice committee. If there are additional measures that can be taken by Parliament to reinforce our input into our capabilities of these Chapter 9 institutions - personally, I have no problem with it and I am very easy with that. For instance, the suggestion that came from Professor Asmal's recommendations, the involvement of the Deputy Speaker, in reinforcing the Chapter 9 institutions, makes a lot of sense to me. So, we should not hold on to boundaries as a leadership and say this belongs to me; that belongs to me. These institutions belong to Parliament and we must make sure that whatever additional resources we can put into them we should do without being led to failure. I thank you very much. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Question put: That the nomination of Dr Gladstone Sandi Baai for appointment as Commissioner on the South African Human Rights Commission be approved.
The Speaker announced that, due to the failure of the electronic voting system, the Whips would conduct a head count of members for the purpose of ascertaining support for the nomination.