STATEMENT BY PATRICIA DE LILLE, FORMER EXECUTIVE MAYOR OF CAPE TOWN AND FORMER MEMBER OF THE DA.
15 November 2018
ANOTHER FALSE DA CONCOCTION TO DAMAGE MY NAME AND REPUTATION COLLAPSES AS THEY ABANDON THE “STEENHUISEN COMMITTEE” FINDINGS AGAINST ME.
DA agrees to a Western Cape High Court Order in which they abandon all of the findings against me in the so-called Steenhuisen Report.
In December 2017 the DA Federal Executive adopted a report prepared by a committee set up to investigate “tensions within the Cape Town DA caucus”. That committee was chaired by DA Chief Whip in parliament, John Steenhuisen, and the report became known as the Steenhuisen Report.
The Steenhuisen Report made unsubstantiated and sweeping findings against me. Findings that committee was not entitled to arrive at given that the committee had adopted an informal style without the opportunity for the veracity of the gossip and allegations to be tested through cross-examination.
The Steenhuisen committee inexplicably upheld as fact what some people told them and dismissed, or failed to report on, any version that contradicted the outcome they wanted to arrive at.
The committee conducted itself like an apartheid-era kangaroo court. It failed to grasp the most basic principles of a fair and just process and exposed the DA as paying lip-service to their value of “fairness’.
I was not prepared to allow a false narrative, driven by nameless, faceless, useless individuals who did not have the courage to put their names to their allegations and to stand by them under scrutiny, to go unchallenged.
I took the report, and the decision by the DA Federal Executive to adopt the report “unanimously”, on review in the Western Cape High Court.
When the DA was unable or unwilling to provide the evidence on which the committee made its findings I was forced to bring a separate application to compel them to provide that evidence.
That evidence was never forthcoming and my application to compel them to provide it was to be heard in the High Court this month.
On Tuesday, 13 November 2018, the Western Cape High Court granted an order by agreement in which the DA abandoned all of the Steenhuisen Committee’s findings against me.
This closes another chapter in a year of DA dirty-tricks against me. They have slandered my name, attempted to ruin my hard-earned reputation and worked day-and-night to remove me from office based in part on the Steenhuisen findings. In the end those findings could never be substantiated and they abandoned them.
I have consistently put my faith in the judiciary whenever I have been denied fairness and justice.
As South Africans have seen this faith has not been misplaced and I have had three out of three court battles, against the DA, found in my favour.
I have no doubt that my review of the Steenhuisen Report would have been a fourth court victory for me had the DA not abandoned that report.
I vowed to clear my name and another pillar of DA deceit has just collapsed.
However, my fight to clear my name is not over. I have brought a High Court application, against the Council of the City of Cape Town and the DA, to review and set aside the two conflicting reports prepared by Bowmans. I am still awaiting a court date for this review.
Issued by Patricia de Lille, 15 November 2018
