Everyone must obey the Constitution, FUL says in response to elections postponement bid

• Freedom Under Law says everyone must simply obey the Constitution.
• The organisation believes that tampering with the intervals of elections has the potential to disrupt the country's democracy. 
• The Electoral Commission of SA has applied to the apex court to have the upcoming local government elections postponed.

Freedom Under Law (FUL) has expressed concern about the Electoral Commission of SA's (IEC) recent court bid to have the local government elections postponed to February next year.

The organisation said on Thursday that either the Constitution should be amended to grant the court such power or it should be complied with.

FUL group CEO Nicole Fritz said: "The case has obvious political implications, but Freedom Under Law is concerned only with a constitutionally crucial objection to any attempt to circumvent the time limits laid down by the Constitution for our elections."

On Friday, the Constitutional Court will hear arguments from several political parties in what is expected to be a vigorously contested case.

They are opposing the IEC's application.

This, after the Constitutional Court gave the green light to the ANC, IFP, DA, African Transformation Movement, Forum4Service Delivery, Makana Independent New Deal and the One South Africa Movement to intervene in the application.

The move paves way for other interested parties to ventilate their issues in court on the postponement of the elections, News24 reported.

Freedom Under Law is expected to argue that everyone – the electorate, the political parties, the electoral commission, and the Constitutional Court – should simply obey and comply with the Constitution, emphasising that the certainty that elected representatives would be called to account at fixed intervals was an essential component of representative democracy. 

On Thursday, the group said tampering with constitutionally fixed intervals of elections for whatever reason "erodes their legitimacy - it is to disrupt the heartbeat of our democracy". 

It said the question was not whether it would be appropriate to postpone the elections, but whether the Constitutional Court had the power to do so:

Earlier this month, the IEC urgently applied to the apex court postpone the October elections. Electoral bosses are concerned about holding elections while the country grapples with Covid-19.

The matter stems from the findings of an inquiry conducted by retired deputy chief justice Dikgang Moseneke on the feasibility of conducting elections amid the current third wave of infections.