‘Unconstitutional’ – EFF won’t follow ANC’s decision that members must step aside if facing charges

EFF leader Julius Malema.

• EFF leader Julius Malema says the ANC’s decision that its members facing charges for corruption or serious crimes should step side is illegal and that his party would never emulate such a decision.
• The leader says people must be treated as “innocent until proven guilty”. 
• He says those members facing charges could rather resign out of their own conscience. 

The EFF says it will never emulate the ANC’s, decision that members who have been formally charged for corruption or other serious crimes, step aside, labelling such as illegal and unconstitutional. 

EFF leader Julius Malema said this on Monday while briefing the media outside the Randburg Magistrate’s Court where he had appeared on a charge relating to the alleged assault of a police colonel at the funeral of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela.  

The governing party decided that members facing corruption charges and other serious crimes must step aside from all leadership positions in the party, in legislatures, and other government structures pending the finalisation of their cases.

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“We won’t emulate that, it’s an illegal thing, it’s unconstitutional.

“We are told the Constitution of SA is the best in the world but for political experiencing [sic], people have now decided to abandon the constitution and follow the popular narrative,” Malema said.

He claimed that while leaders would be charged, they will never be tried, adding that he believed the aim was not to convict, but for the members to be moved so their “competitors” could emerge in the party’s next elective conference. Malema said:

He added that the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” must be respected and people should not be charged for political convenience.

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Malema said instead of members being pushed aside, they should, through their consciences, resign instead. 

“Let them take an individual decision. Let it not be a structural organisational position, let their conscience speak to them. They must resign on [sic] their own accord. We are saying, you cannot go into a meeting and resolve on an unconstitutional principle,” the political leader said. 

Malema said if he was still in the ANC, he would have taken the party to court for making such decisions, because it is unconstitutional, he maintained. 

The ANC’s National Executive Committee also agreed that members convicted of corruption or serious crime should resign from their positions and face disciplinary action in line with the party’s constitution.