An avenue to funnel funds towards the interests of political office bearers under a cloud of secrecy \u2013 potentially to secure patronage relationships \u2013 has just been shut firmly by the high court.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, amaBhungane scored a ground breaking court victory that will see future donations to members of the executive seeking election to political office within their respective parties become subject to scrutiny.<\/p>\n
The high court declared the Executive Ethics Code to be unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.<\/p>\n
The Code governs the conduct of members of Cabinet, deputy ministers, and members of executive councils. It obliges them to disclose \u201cbenefits of a material nature received by them\u201d while in office.<\/p>\n
We raised the issue of internal campaign funding disclosure when we intervened in the president\u2019s high court review of the public protector\u2019s report that found that the president had acted unlawfully by failing to disclose donations made to his CR17 campaign for election to lead the ANC.<\/p>\n
Our basis for intervening was always one of principle: we did not take a view on the dispute between the public protector and the president. Rather, our arguments concerned the disclosure of future<\/i> donations.<\/p>\n
The high court dismissed our arguments on technical grounds, as well as the public protector\u2019s case. When she applied for leave to appeal in the Constitutional Court, we also approached that court to consider our appeal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While the public protector\u2019s case was dismissed by the top court, it determined that our constitutional case had been dismissed wrongly, and remitted the matter to the high court.<\/p>\n Back in the high court, amaBhungane contended that the Constitution and the Executive Members Ethics Act require internal campaign donations to be disclosed. This can help to mitigate risks of conflicts of interest arising when donors support political candidates\u2019 campaigns for high office within parties \u2013 or at least, make them subject to public scrutiny.<\/p>\n Judge President Dunstan Mlambo accepted these arguments in a judgment that is eminently clear and methodical. It deals with a potentially contradictory statement in the Constitutional Court\u2019s judgment regarding whether internal campaign donations are disclosable squarely by cutting to the nub of the issue: the duty to disclose rests on the question of whether the donations can be categorised as a personal benefit.<\/p>\n