EFF STATEMENT ON WITS UNIVERSITY’S USAGE OF APARTHEID CODE OF CONDUCT TO CHARGE EFF STUDENTS

22 September 2015

The EFF expresses its utter condemnation of Wits University Vice Chancellor, Prof. Adam Habib’s intentional usage of an old, rejected and outdated Code of Conduct to charge EFF students. In the unfolding disciplinary hearings taking place the university admitted that it has used an old and outdates Code of Conduct despite there being a new, revised and approved one.

The old Code of Conduct which Adam Habib used and also submitted to court during the EFF case to reinstate the suspended students, has no provision for protest whilst the new Code of Conduct adopted by the university council makes a provision for student protest which it clearly says it is not part of misconduct.

Adam Habib’s usage of an Old Code of Conduct has led the university having to revise its charges on the students despite having an option to drop them. It also means the university lied in a court of law when it submitted this old Code of Conduct claiming it as the law of the university which students have broken.

Habib, due to his hatred of the EFF went to the extent of going into the apartheid archive to fetch its tools of subjugation to try and brake the student spirit into docility. First he banned the EFF from campus and bared its members from participating in SRC elections. It took a court action to force Habib to allow students the freedom of assembly, association and the right to belong to any party of their choice.

Secondly, Habib took disciplinary action against EFF students arguing that they must be expelled and arbitrarily suspended them. Yet there was no single incident of destruction of property, disruption of exams or lecture sessions in the protest action in question.

The idea of the new democratic university must, if it is to appreciate the history of apartheid, embrace as opposed to suppress student protests. It is for that reason that the Wits University Senate and Council reworked its Student Disciplinary Code of Conduct to specifically state that protest is not misconduct. The university outlaws the disruption of the normal running of the university, but makes a provision for protest. This means, the Code of Conduct anticipates protest to be disruptive and undermines the constitutional provisions as per section 17 of the Constitution which states:

"Everyone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions."

Habib however has done everything in his power to close the university and shut down dissent. This is fascist and must be condemned with the contempt it deserves. Universities have a duty to educate our people and when their first option in relation to dissent is punishment and expulsion, then they fail society. Our universities must take protest as a progressive form of democratisation because students have historically played a potent role in transforming the very universities through protest.

The EFF views Habib as the greatest danger to this idea of a democratic university because of his primitive and backward ways of discipline which are based on an obsession with respect for authority as opposed to authority being based on it respecting and being constituted by its subjects.

We call on the Wits University Council to reign him in for misleading a Court of Law by submitting an old Code of Conduct as this is equal to perjury which is a criminal offence. If the university believes in the rule of law, it must realise that Habib’s actions have put the university into disrepute and thus he must be removed. The university must place him under suspension and institute disciplinary action against him with a view to fire him.

Finally, it must be noted that the EFF's exclusion from standing for SRC elections using criminal means also casts doubt on the very outcome of the elections all due to Habib.

Statement issued by the Economic Freedom Fighters, 22 September 2015