Constitutional Court rules in favour of ANC’s ‘final button’ argument

The Constitutional Court heard arguments by both parties on Monday on whether the final button constituted a complete submission or not. The Constitutional Court has ruled that the ANC will be allowed to appear on the ballot in the six municipalities where its candidates list submission was disputed. The party was successful in convincing the ConCourt justices that even though it did not click the final submission button, its lists loaded onto the IEC’s database should still be accepted. ANC legal counsel Advocate Daniel Berger had argued that the final button on the submissions portal was not a legally binding requirement for acceptance, as the data was loaded on the system prior to the stipulated deadline. The ruling saves the ANC from failing to put forward 181 ward and proportional representation candidates in the Eastern Cape and Free State. Justice Rammaka Mathopo handed down the ruling, stating reasons for the judgement would be given at a later stage. In its answering affidavit, the IEC argued that the Municipal Electoral Act gave it the powers to determine the framework by which candidate lists were submitted, highlighting that the system had been in place for 10 years. “The Online Candidate Nomination System (OCNS) was introduced in 2016 and used in all elections since then. The ANC has been using the OCNS “Determining matters such as deadlines and methods of submissions is also an incidental or ancillary power that is necessary to achieve the express power granted to the commission by the statute,” the affidavit states. *This is a developing story