[ad_1]
A file image dated November 23, 2015 shows the new headquarters of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands. EPA / MARTIJN BEEKMAN
The position on the ICC set out in the international relations discussion paper reflects President Cyril Ramaphosa’s opinion on the matter during the party’s national executive committee in June.
First published in Daily Maverick 168.
The ANC could be beating a strategic rollback from some of the resolutions adopted at its Nasrec conference in 2017, as some of them have become difficult to implement. The decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is one example.
South Africa should stick to the consensus reached in the African Union to stay in the ICC and push for reform from within, rather than walk away, the ANC says in a policy discussion paper released before its national general council. The council, the ANC’s largest inter-conference meeting, was supposed to take place in June but had to be postponed due to the Covid-19 shutdown and is now expected to take place in April or May next year.
The position on the ICC set out in the international relations discussion paper, one of the 12 documents, reflects President Cyril Ramaphosa’s opinion on the matter during the party’s national executive committee in June. the sunday time Ramaphosa informed the meeting that “we must consider a strategic withdrawal of our position on the withdrawal of the International Criminal Court.” He said Ramaphosa and his detractors disagreed on the matter, but the argument that SA remains part of the ICC to help Palestine bring a case against Israel would be difficult for detractors to refute.
According to the discussion paper, the “complex changes” that took place at the national, continental and global levels mean that some resolutions from its Nasrec 2017 conference “are becoming difficult to implement as they are, or are taking longer.” He cites the recent African Union resolution, which reverses its 2017 decision to withdraw en masse, reform or transform the ICC and revise the Rome Statute “with a view to strengthening [the ICC] without withdrawals ”.
Means for [South Africa] withdrawing would undermine the African consensus by being president of the AU. ” The document adds that “several countries committed to withdrawal have changed their minds”, also because Venezuela and Palestine have approached the ICC “to challenge the United States and will need the support of African countries.”
One argument was that the Malabo Protocol, which provides for the African Court, “has been hampered by insufficient ratification.” Efforts by Parliament to amend the International Crimes Bill have lapsed and have not been reactivated.
The discussion paper on economic transformation focuses unsurprisingly on South Africa’s recovery after Covid-19, which should see South Africans improve their “economic opportunities and agency”. One suggestion is to increase the minimum wage by at least 1.5% above annual inflation, as opposed to the 2019/20 financial year when the increase was due to inflation.
No overt mention is made of controversial issues such as the nationalization of the Reserve Bank and the expropriation of land without compensation, while the slogan of critics of Ramaphosa’s “radical economic transformation” is only listed as the “radical socio-economic transformation” more holistic.
It envisions ways to address bottlenecks in the implementation of economic policy, caused by disagreements within the ANC, as well as with the interests of capital. The implementation of economic policy must be centralized in the Presidency, he says.
It also deals with organizational renewal within the ANC. His 19-year-old document, Through the Eye of the Needle, is pending revision due to “the manifest lack of revolutionary morality and the lack of respect for the values of the movement and particularly its character.”
It does not mention the issue of leaders standing aside when facing serious criminal charges, but ANC Under Secretary General Jessie Duarte told a news conference on Friday morning that this will be discussed at an executive committee meeting. national party in December. He said the party was receiving advice from “far superior silk” on how to balance the need for ethical leadership with the right to a fair hearing.
The NEC is still out on whether, when and how the national general council will take place. “It is not an obligation in our constitution,” said Duarte. “He says we ‘can’ convene the NGC. The ANC considered that the NGC could not take place within the established period. “
ANC policy chief Jeff Radebe said the conference could be hybrid in April or May. The party will also take stock of the National Development Plan, which was adopted in 2012 but which, in the best of cases, has only been implemented in a fragmented way. The plan’s goal is to achieve dramatic improvements in policies and socio-economic conditions by 2030.
The party is using the proliferation of meetings on virtual platforms to engage more people in policy discussions.
Duarte said the materials and slides will be made available to party affiliates, and all ANC members are expected to participate in the discussions, which will also be open to non-ANC members and interest groups.
A virtual NGC could work in the Ramaphosa lobby’s favor, as many of the ANC’s most radical resolutions have been achieved in the past by loading the relevant political commissions with lobbyists pushing orchestrated views out loud.
The 12 policy discussion papers are published as a special 213-page edition of the ANC’s magazine, Umrabulo. DM168
You can get your copy of DM168 at these Pick n Pay stories.
