The Gauteng High Court is set to hear the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) case on overturning, what the party calls the “unlawful City of Johannesburg council meeting”, on October 18.

As submitted to the High Court, the DA wants ousted City of Johannesburg Mayor Mpho Phalatse, along with the executives of the City, to continue in office.

Phalatse was removed as the mayor of Johannesburg in a special sitting and replaced with African National Congress (ANC) councillor Dada Morero.

Last week Phalatse launched a court bid to overturn her removal as Johannesburg mayor.

“The Council events of that day saw the laws of the country and Rules of Council thrown to one side, in a desperate grab at power by a corrupt cabal whose only goal is to control and corrupt the City’s R77.3-billion budget,” Phalatse stated.

She said this was not about the positions that members hold or once held, but rather was about the rule of law.

“Whether we go back into government is one issue, but our removal from Government and the preceding events were illegal. And, therefore, as legislators who swore to obey, respect and uphold the Constitution and all other laws of the Republic of South Africa, it would be wrong of us to simply ‘let this go’ on that basis alone,” Phalatse added.

The DA wants the High Court to declare the decision of the Programming Committee of Council taken on September 29 to place a motion of no confidence in Phalatse on the agenda for the Extraordinary Council Meeting on September 30, as unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.

The party also wants the High Court to declare the decision by Speaker Colleen Makhubela on September 29, to schedule an Extraordinary Meeting of Council for September 30 as unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.

The DA is seeking a cost order and a personal cost order on Makhubele.

Phalatse warned that service delivery would collapse under the “illegally installed government”.

“We have been informed that the illegitimate ANC-administration has issued a directive that all the City’s Entity Boards be replaced in order to appoint their own people to continue facilitating their looting and corruption. We are concerned about what will happen to the Entities and service delivery through this move, hence we will put pressure on the courts to reinstate the legitimate government for our residents,” she explained.

She highlighted that the events leading up to the September 30th removal of the Multi-Party Government were a political hit not just on the law, but also on the work the party was doing to stop corruption and advance a pragmatic service delivery programme that was already showing results.