The Democratic Alliance (DA) has warned that Wednesday’s judgment of the High Court in the Western Cape could render Parliament’s work unnecessary.

The court gave Parliament 18 months to force political parties to disclose private funding.

Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee on political party funding is already working on the Bill.

DA chairperson of the Federal Executive, James Selfe says, “On the face of it, the thing that we wonder about is whether this judgement is superfluxes given the fact that there is legislation before a parliamentary committee that provides exactly what this legal action was all about, namely the disclosure that political parties received. So the only question that we have is whether it is necessary for parliament to amend the promotion of information act or whether the job has already been done in terms of the new bill.”

Meanwhile, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Chief Whip Floyd Shivambo has welcomed the ruling saying it endorses the party’s position in Parliament.

“That was officially, the position that we made to the Ad Hoc Committee on political party funding. So we welcomed the judgement and we are willing to open our books in any way. As the EEF we have been opening our books to the public and our members. We do not have any doggy funders as the EFF, so this is the good opportunity. Democracy will be protected. There won’t be any dodgy funding of political funders.”