Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Dianne Kohler Barnard is expected to appear in the Equality Court, sitting in the Cape Town Regional Court building on Friday morning over alleged racist and discriminatory complaints made at a staff workshop.

Magistrate Daniel Thulare is expected to set a date for the hearing after determining in March that she had shown disregard for the case by failing to reply to the charges brought by party employee, Louw Nel.

Nel, who is the party’s operations manager at Parliament,  alleged in his affidavit that in a workshop held in February last year, Barnard made comments that were “xenophobic, racist and sexist in nature”.

Her lawyer submitted that mediation would be a better option, but  magistrate Tulare ruled that the matter be heard as an Equality Court matter.

In 2015, Kohler Barnard successfully appealed her expulsion from the DA after she was found guilty for bringing the name of the party into disrepute and for contravening its social media policy.

She shared a Facebook post calling for the return of former Apartheid state president PW Botha.

(Source: SABC News)