De Lille ‘only staying to restore her name’

Despite Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille’s spirited fight to reclaim her blue T-shirt‚ her relationship with the DA is irrevocably broken‚ the Cape Town High Court heard yesterday.

The beleaguered mayor is challenging the constitutionality of the party’s so-called “cessation clause”‚ which the DA invoked when it terminated her membership last month.

Her declaration during an interview with Eusebius McKaiser on Radio 702 on April 26 was the last straw for the party.

The contested clause says that someone ceases to be a DA member when the person publicly declares his or her intention to resign from the party.

De Lille has been at pains to explain that she intended to resign from her mayoral position‚ after clearing her name‚ and not from the party.

But the DA’s counsel‚ Sean Rosenberg‚ would have none of it.

He told a full bench of judges it was clear that, at the time of the interview, “the relationship between party and member had irrevocably broken down”.

“The only reason for staying and fighting is to restore her name and she is not going to restore her name by resigning. She will retain her name by staying and fighting the disciplinary process.”

Rosenberg said the interview characterised the mischief which the clause was designed to weed out.

The clause was meant to protect the party from disloyal members‚ particularly in high positions.

He said the party had charged De Lille with serious charges of maladministration and nepotism, but she had stonewalled the disciplinary process by lodging several lawsuits.
As a result‚ the disciplinary process could take a number of years.

In the interchange that compounded De Lille’s woes‚ McKaiser said: “If I hear you‚ you are saying‚ ‘Ideally I want to clear my name‚ Eusebius‚ that’s why I am going to court and if I win this battle and when I win it, because I know I’ve done nothing wrong‚ then the morning after I have won the case then I will resign from the DA’.”

De Lille responded: “I will walk away. You summed it up correctly.” In court papers‚ she accuses the DA of double standards.

She said it did not invoke the same clause when MP Phumzile van Damme said she would resign “unless the party honestly engages with white privilege and black poverty”.

“[The clause] is triggered even if a member subjectively does not want to resign but objectively‚ whether as a result of a mistake or an altered state of mind‚ expresses an intention to resign publicly‚” her papers read.

“[It] also violates the rights of every adult citizen to stand for public office and‚ if elected‚ to hold office.

“Contrary to the view of the DA‚ it was not simply the party that was elected in 2016 in Cape Town with a two-thirds majority.

“[De Lille] was running as the party’s mayoral candidate and, accordingly, effectively stood for office during those elections.”

As an elected public representative‚ she could be removed from her position only through a vote of no confidence or a guilty finding in a fair disciplinary process.

“Both are absent in the present case‚” the court papers state.

The case continues.