Independent candidates contesting the 2024 national and provincial elections have failed in their bid to convince the Constitutional Court that the Electoral Amendment Act, signed into law in April, violated their rights.
The complainants challenged the threshold set for independent candidates to enter the national election and also challenged the number of seats available to independent candidates in the National Assembly.
The dispute at the Apex Court was brought by the Independent Candidates Association (ICA) and Build One South Africa (Bosa), who wanted the court to rule on the limitations being placed on them.
This, in their argument, included whether it is irrational and inconsistent with the Constitution for independent candidates to only be allowed to contest 200 of the 400 seats in the National Assembly.
The ICA wanted to be allowed to contest at least 350 seats.
The applicants also want the threshold for the number of signatures required to contest an election to be lowered from 10,000 to 1,000.
Independent candidates not aligned with political parties will, for the first time, be allowed to contest the polls in 2024.
Delivering the judgment on Monday, Justice Nonkosi Mhlantla, accompanied by Justice Jody Kollapen, said the Electoral Amendment Act that splits the 400 Parliamentary seats into 200 regional seats and 200 national seats was not unconstitutional and not irrational.
The court found that the Electoral Amendment Act was in line with the Constitution, and a vote for an independent candidate would not carry less weight than one for a political party.
Mhlantla said it was not inconceivable that South Africans may choose to split their national and provincial votes between an independent candidate and a political party.
“It is not necessary to conduct the justification analysis, as I have concluded that it does not violate any fundamental rights of the applicant.
“The applicant failed to prove it is irrational or that it infringes on a provision in the Bill of Rights. Therefore, the applicants have not made out a case to justify a declaration of constitutional invalidity,” Justice Mhlantla said.
Mhlantla added that the apex court could not interfere with a decision “simply because it disagrees with it”.
“Even if the 350/50 split proposed by the applicants might arguably be fairer and achieve proportionality, Sections 46(1) and 105(1) of the Constitution expressly leave the choice of the electoral system in Parliament’s hands,” she said.
The court also ruled that each party pay their own costs.
kailene.pillay@inl.co.za
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