ZONDO COMMISSION REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS: PARLIAMENTARY UPDATE ON IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

ZONDO COMMISSION REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS: PARLIAMENTARY UPDATE ON IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS

• 30 June 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Parliament has finally published presiding officer speaking notes on a 29 June 2023 media briefing held to update ordinary South Africans on progress made in implementing Zondo Commission Inquiry report recommendations. The notes were posted on Parliament’s website more than 24 hours after the briefing.

Among other things, they confirm that Parliament has developed ‘a comprehensive implementation plan structured around four key focus areas’:

• oversight and accountability in general
• oversight of the executive’s response plan
• monitoring Parliament’s implementation plan, and
• reforms to strengthen Parliament’s constitutional mandate.

This is nevertheless noting that:

• ‘the mandate for legislation is vested on Parliament by the Constitution and should follow the prescribed processes, including public participation’
• ‘parties represented in Parliament … have a right to input or oppose any proposed legislation that is presented to Parliament’, and that
• ‘Parliament cannot guarantee that the outcome of the law-making process – including consultations and public participation – (is) … consistent with … (a) specific recommendation from the Commission’.

Against that backdrop, the notes outline steps being taken by the National Assembly Rules Committee regarding:

• party funding and electoral ‘reform’
• amendments to the Intelligence Services Oversight Act, 1994, and
• ‘ramping up’ capacity building and training intended to equip members with the ‘analytical and technical skills required … (to) exercise … their mandate, especially with regard to law-making and oversight’.

They appear to have been drawn from a supplementary report tabled in the National Assembly on 29 June 2023.

It is not clear from any available documents if the implementation plan will be tabled in the National Assembly and formally adopted. At this stage, the ‘muti-party Rules Committee’ appears to be driving the implementation process.

According to the speaking notes, this committee has already ‘agreed’ that it is ‘not desirable to interfere with democratic decision-making processes within committees, which include (the) election of chairpersons’. The decision responds to a Commission recommendation, ‘that parliamentary oversight may be better served if more chairpersons were elected from minority parties’.

• speaking notes
• supplementary report (page 13 of the parliamentary papers)
• November 2022 parliamentary media statement on the initial report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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