Moseneke suggests review of president's powers

Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke has questioned the amount of power vested in President Jacob Zuma, According to a media report.

The Beeld  reports: he said when the Constitution was being formulated there were differences over who had the power to appoint a state official, negotiators were too eager to put so much power in former president Nelson Mandela's hands,

"He [Mandela] would have done the right thing," said Moseneke in the Afrikaans daily.

But the concentration of powers to appoint and remove an official that Zuma had, was something the country ignored at its own risk.

"In a few instances the president exercises these powers with Parliament and other state institutions. The rest are at the president's own discretion," said Moseneke.

He was speaking at the Mapungubwe Institute and the Thabo Mbeki Leadership Institute at Unisa in Pretoria.

The court had already had to judge several of Zuma's appointments. The question was how to protect appointments from the whim of the appointing authority.

"I propose that we consider the distribution of open power in the following two decades. Naturally, amending executive power is going to be a difficult task."

An important debate was whether Cabinet members and MPs could keep their promise to hold the executive accountable and would MPs "be prepared to shake the executive's cage?"