MVC lodges application against High Court ruling dismissing constitutionality of Political Party Funding Act

The civil society group - My Vote Counts (MVC) - has officially lodged its application for leave to appeal a high court ruling that dismissed its case against the constitutionality of the Political Funding Act.

At the same time, it’s also lodged an appeal for direct access to the Constitutional Court.

The new applications are in response to the Western Cape High Court’s August ruling dismissing MVC’s arguments - that it should not be up to the president to determine the limit for donations to political parties.

That ruling was handed down just three days after the president, acting on the advice of Parliament, officially doubled the annual limit to thirty million rand.

In its appeal application to the high court, MVC disagrees with the full bench that its case became moot when the president announced a new donation limit and disclosure threshold in a proclamation.

It said the court acted unfairly by not allowing the applicants to address the court on the matter of mootness.

My vote counts said that its challenge was not confined to numerical values of the thresholds, but the process in determining them, and the lack of justification for a disclosure threshold.

MVC thinks all political donations should be disclosed – including to independent candidates.

The lobby group added that the fact that the disclosure threshold doubled in quantum through the August proclamation reinforces the need for relief, and does not render its arguments moot.

According to MVC, the president’s decision to double the cap from R15 million to R30 million while the judgment was pending, also did not render its constitutional challenges moot.

“On the contrary, this action reinforced the need for the relief sought, as a cap of R30 million is even more constitutionally problematic; it permits substantially greater potential for undue influence in the funding of political parties, and exacerbates the very constitutional defects the applicant seeks to remedy,” reads the MVC’s appeal.

The applicants argue the high court did not sufficiently grapple with issues of constitutionality when considered against previous constitutional court rulings in respect of political funding.