Court to decide on the politics of BNYC

PATRICIA MAGANU-EDWIN
Staff Writer | Wednesday March 23, 2011 00:00

Former BNYC treasurer, Andy Boatile, took the BNYC and its executive committee to court in an urgent application to set aside a ban imposed upon him.  

Boatile is represented by Mishingo Jeremiah of Mmohe Attorneys, while BNYC and its elections' committee are represented by Kelebogile Kewagamang of Rantao Kewagamang Attorneys.

After hearing arguments from both parties, Phumaphi is to decide whether the matter is urgent and whether the BNYC elections committee did enough to prove that the plaintiff was a political activist as it alleged. In his opening arguments, Jeremiah submitted that the issue was a matter of urgency because the elections were to take place on March 26. He argued that if an order to postpone the elections pending finalisation of the matter was not issued, any relief that the court may grant thereafter in the applicant's favour would be meaningless because elections would have been held without his participation. He said though the accused knew that he was barred from participating in the elections, he had waited because he had written to the elections committee and was still waiting for the response, which took about 15 days to get to him. 

'Immediately he became aware of the elimination, he wrote a letter to the committee,' said Jeremiah. 'He wanted a response, whether it was positive or negative.' It was also unnecessary for the respondent to have sent the letter to the plaintiff by post when they could have delivered it or called him to come and collect it.

'He only got the response after registering the matter with the court,' Jeremiah noted, adding that not only the applicant's conduct should be reviewed but also the conduct of the respondents. He further submitted that the applicant could not have rushed to court without hearing why he had been excluded from the respondents first.

'When he wrote his founding affidavit, he was still in the dark as to why he had been excluded,' Jeremiah said. It had seemed that the applicant had satisfied all the requirements to run for the elections, except for the issue of political activity.

One of the requirements to be on the executive committee of BNYC was that the youth should not participate in partisan politics. Jeremiah said that the only problem was that the respondents never cared to confront the applicant about the allegations that he was a BDP activist.

'Three things that made him a political activist were that he hosts meetings at his house, he advertised party meetings on Facebook and that he attended a party meeting as a delegate,' he noted. 'These are things that led them to believe that he is a political activist.'

Jeremiah said whether these things were true or not was not the issue. 'We are questioning the procedure that was used,' he argued. 'They could have called him and given him some sort of hearing about the information they had stumbled upon.'

He questioned the respondents' sources and the fact that they were anonymous. Jeremiah further said the applicant was not specifically listed in the letter that the minister wrote to dissolve the previous committee where some people were said to be politically active and to condemn their style of leadership and management.

He said the respondents failed to argue why their decision was right and should not be set aside. The attorney for the respondents, Kelebogile Kewagamang, said the applicant should be judged solely in his founding affidavit and that the issue of political activity was not in the founding affidavit.

She opposed the urgency of the matter, saying nothing had stopped the applicant from registering the matter with the court as soon he knew that he had been vetted out. Kewagamang submitted that the minister's letter to dissolve the previous committee, which the applicant was a part of, did not exclude him.

'The minister's letter was addressed to the executive committee that the plaintiff was a part of and he dissolved the committee because of their involvement in politics and style of management,' she argued.  She said the applicant had failed to declare on that issue when he handed in his application to participate in the elections for the position of vice-chairman.