Claim: CCC Deputy Spokesperson Gift Ostallos Siziba claimed appeal by recalled CCC members at Supreme Court suspends High Court ruling that dismissed their request to be reinstated back into Parliament
Verdict : Incorrect
Lawyers have dismissed claims by Gift Ostallos Siziba, the deputy spokesperson for the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), that an appeal filed by their recalled members at the Supreme Court suspends a previous High Court decision, rendering the recalls ineffective.
On November 4, 2023, the High Court denied the recalled CCC members’ request that they be reinstated back into their positions in Parliament, arguing that the recaller, Sengezo Tshabangu, was an imposter with no authority to expel them.
Writing on his X account on November 8, 2023, Siziva alleged that an appeal filed by the recalled CCC members in the Supreme Court suspended the decision of the High Court.
“Our position remains unchanged and unwavering. Sengeso Tshabangu is neither our member nor Interim Sec General because such a position does not exist in our movement,” said Siziva.
However, a legal expert Nqobani Sithole said the CCC deputy spokesperson was misleading the public by making uninformed political statements.
“I think it’s just political rhetoric more than legal issues there. One of the issues that Ostallos doesn’t understand is the expelled CCC members filed for an application for a declaratur and there a plethora of case law that say, ‘if an order has been given, or relief sought has been given or matter has been disposed in a declaratur even if you file an appeal it doesn’t change the status quo, meaning the CCC members remain expelled the members of the party,” Sithole explained.
The recalled CCC MPS and Senators had filed two applications separately -first by the 14 MPs on October 12, 2023, under case number HCH 6684/23 and the second application by the nine senators on October 16, 2023.
These applications were both urgent court applications for a declaratur and consequential relief in terms of Section 14 of the High Court Act [Chapter 7:06] where they sought to be declared as Members of Parliament.
According to the legal expert, if the recalled CCC members had filed another application that was not a declaratur, their Supreme Court appeal would have allowed them to remain in Parliament until the case was heard, but that was not the case.
“Had their application been something else other than a declaratur, yes their Supreme Court appeal would have made everything stand up until the appeal has been heard but that did not happen,” Sithole said.
“Whatever statement Ostallos has made on X still remains a statement on X, which has no legal basis but that’s the unfortunate part of it. They want to be lawyers and engineers yet at the same time, they mislead each and every information they are taking out to people. That’s not the correct position. Maybe if Ostallos wanted to be helpful, he was supposed to find out from their legal team the effect of an appeal or decision of a declaratur.”
