POLITICS LIVE: Constitutional Court is seriously annoyed with Bathabile Dlamini

The Constitutional Court has called on Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini to file an affidavit by the end of this month explaining why she should not pay the legal costs of the social grants application.

The application was brought by the Black Sash to clarify how social grants would be paid once the current contract expires at the end of March.

The court ruled that it had no choice but to extend the contract with Cash Paymaster Services for 12 months while a new tender process unfolded.

Dlamini was not a respondent in her personal capacity, but the court had strong words for her failure to sort out the social grants mess in time.

Reading the judgment, Justice Johann Froneman said:

"There was no legitimate reason for the court not to accept the assurances of an organ of state - Sassa - under the guidance of the responsible minister that it would be able to fulfill an executive and administrative function allotted to it in terms of the constitution.

"There was no suggestion that this court's remedial order would be disregarded. Now there is."

The judgment said that Dlamini and Sassa's failure to conclude a new deal to deliver social grants had resulted in "the deepest and most shaming of ironies".

Justice Froneman said: "This court and the whole country are now confronted with a situation where the executive arm of government admits that it is not able to fulfill its constitutional and statutory obligations to provide for the social assistance of its people.

'And in the deepest and most shaming of ironies, it now seeks to rely on a private corporate entity with no discernable commitment to transformative empowerment to get it out of this predicament."

The ruling concluded with the following:

"The minister is called on to show cause on affidavit on or before Friday 31 March 2017 why:

1. She should not be joined in her personal capacity; and

2. She should not pay costs of the application from her own pocket."

Should Dlamini be joined in her personal capacity and then fail to convince the court that she is not responsible for the mess, she will have to pay costs. And, judging by the number of lawyers swarming about the case, this could be a substantial amount.