Parliament sued for letting corrupt MPs off

Activist group #UniteBehind, which protested outside parliament on Tuesday, has taken parliament's registrar and joint ethics committee to court, challenging the legislature's new code of conduct.

- Liezl Human

In 2022, the group laid complaints in terms of parliament's code of conduct against six ANC MPs who were implicated in state capture, including corruption at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Pasa).

In April 2023, #UniteBehind started litigation against the committee for failing to act “diligently”, accusing it of “an unreasonable and unexplained delay in handling the complaints”.

It amended its notice of motion in February after discovering that an amended code of conduct had been adopted. #UniteBehind claims this was done without public participation and without alerting them.

The case was heard on Tuesday before a full bench in the Western Cape High Court.

Gregory Solik, the advocate representing #UniteBehind, told the court the new code of conduct was unconstitutional, since it was introduced during the course of the litigation.

#UniteBehind argued it constituted an “attempt to circumvent judicial scrutiny”.