Constitutions

The SACP Constitution was revised in April last year at the Special National Congress. The new version was published more than a year later. Here it is linked below. It may be needed in the coming days and weeks. Parts 6 to 22 (more than two thirds of the whole) deal with the structures of the Party and part 23 deals with discipline. Johannesburg Central Branch of the SACP passed a resolution last Sunday fully supporting Cde Zico Tamela, the branch’s member, nominee and now duly elected Chairperson of the SACP Gauteng Province. Cde Zico has been told that the incumbent members of the Provincial Executive Committee (PEC) will not accept him. Other members have met in a purported Provincial Working Committee (PWC) without him, and without letting him know. The branch passed a resolution that the PEC member who punched Comrade Zico in the July 16th meeting of the Provincial Council should be suspended pending a disciplinary hearing (and possible police action). Nothing of the kind has happened. Instead, the comrade who assaulted Zico was to be found among the honoured SACP PEC delegates to the COSATU Gauteng Provincial Congress last weekend. The branch on Sunday passed a resolution that the election to replace the four vacant “additional member” PEC positions should take place immediately. These positions could have been filled at any of the last three Provincial Councils, in accordance with the PC’s expressed wishes and the SACP Constitution. Instead, shameful scenes of deliberate delaying tactics and even barricading of doors by the incumbent office-bearers have taken place. The PC meeting of July 16th, scheduled to start at 09h00, did not conclude until 17h00. No food was provided, nor transport home for the delegates from all over Gauteng. To admit such failings within the SACP is bitter, but a cover-up would be worse. A cover-up would be even more disreputable than the disrepute the incumbent members of the SACP Gauteng PEC have already brought upon the Party. They are abusing their positions, and have been doing so for years past. There are other examples of their bullying that will have to be fully opened up to scrutiny in due course, having to do with money matters and with membership records and withholding of electoral rights. The SACP Constitution says: “Between Provincial Congresses, the Provincial Council shall be the highest decision-making body in the province.” The Gauteng PEC is presently defying its Provincial Council while claiming powers and authorities for themselves that they do not have, and attempting to intimidate and silence people who bear witness to their violations. For students of constitutions, the difficulty is that although the PC is the higher body, the PEC members are the officials who must call its meetings and make its arrangements. Hence (and also in the ANC) there is the phenomenon of BECs that meet but do not hold BGMs nor even AGMs, and so on upwards through the structures. Betraying the membership, elected people perpetuate their terms of office, always hoping that the masses will go away and leave them alone to enjoy their comfort. Office-bearers are the custodians of the Constitution. When they are the ones who are betraying it, there is a crisis. Bureaucratic position-hogging will be cured when we all have an established right of recall and no fixed terms: In other words the Paris Commune constitution, which is the real “best in the world”. Rob Amato’s column was quoted here yesterday, not knowing that he had already perished in a car accident on his way home from the same COSATU Provincial Congress mentioned above. The tributes from the Star and from COSATU, linked below, will no doubt be only the first among many. His was an individual voice, such as make up a true society, worthy of the name. We cannot be free without such people. Meanwhile as usual, a great variety of mass action takes place. See the linked reports of the campaigns around the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, the International Transport Workers’ Federation, and two heroic FAWU strike actions at the Schoombee Landgoed farm, and the Kwality Biscuit factory. Click on these links: 2005, SACP, Constitution (5637 words) Rob Amato, respected writer on legal issues, The Star (417 words) Rob Amato, tribute from COSATU (163 words) Chris Hani Bara Transfomation Project Update 060719 (1004 words) ITF Congress press conference and running order (954 words) Schoombee Landgoed and Kwality Biscuit strikes, FAWU (350 words)