Zuma faces legal action on SABC board
President Jacob Zuma 'stalling' on SABC board. Picture: Reuters President Jacob Zuma 'stalling' on SABC board. Picture: Reuters
Apparent delays by President Jacob Zuma to appoint an SABC board has escalated into legal action.
Yesterday, two organisations, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS) filed a joint urgent application in the high court in Joburg demanding that Zuma appoint a permanent SABC board within 48 hours if he is to avoid legal action.
Zuma is cited as the first respondent in the court papers, while Communications Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and the SABC are cited as the second and third respondents, respectively.
The rest of the respondent are the EFF, who last week wrote to Zuma threatening legal action, as well as the members of the now defunct interim board.
“It is declared that the president’s failure to appoint or/and undue delay in appointing the fifth to sixth respondents (interim board) as non-executive members of the SABC board is unlawful and unconstitutional,” MMA and SOS argue in their court papers.
In their founding affidavits, the two organisations detailed their various correspondences to Zuma raising their concerns with the apparent delays regarding the appointment of a board. MMA first wrote on October 5 after the interim board’s term on September 26 and following Parliament’s decision three weeks earlier recommending the interim board be made permanent.
When Zuma did not respond, the MMA wrote another letter expressing deep concern over his “failure to formally comply (and) appoint the candidates sent to you”.
The Saturday Star reported last week that part of the reason Zuma was stalling was because he did not trust the interim board chairperson Khanyisile Kweyama and deputy chair, Mathatha Tsedu. While Zuma might still be mulling over which names to drop from the interim board, MMA said the constitution makes it clear that “the president is to appoint the 12 non-executive members ‘on the advice of the National Assembly’.
“That means that as a matter of law, the president has no discretion regarding whether to appoint board members identified by the National Assembly. The only role for the president is to determine the chair and deputy from the board members identified by the National Assembly. This makes the delay in appointment, with respect, simply inexplicable.”
The two organisations have given Zuma staggered deadlines to respond to their legal challenge.
Should the president not appoint the SABC board by Monday, he will have to file notice of intention to oppose their application by 5pm, and file his answering affidavit by Tuesday.