Pretoria - A now former DA member lost her bid to claim R10 million in damages from the party, following her allegations that she was interviewed by the selection panel of the political party in a “female ablution block”.
Ntombenhle Rulumeni earlier turned to the Eastern Cape High Court, where she argued that being interviewed in a toilet had impaired her dignity. That court agreed with her and ordered the DA to pay damages to her.
But the political party took the matter on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, where five judges found that Rulumeni was not interviewed in a female ablution block, although the room in which the interview took place was adjacent to the ablution facility.
The photographs presented to the court showed that it was a large, carpeted room containing lockers, a dressing table, a wall mounted mirror and a couch.
Rulumeni served as a DA representative in the Buffalo City Municipal Council, and her ambition was to become a councillor.
She was interviewed but was “red-flagged” by the Electoral College due to certain probity findings. She was granted a second interview, where the problems arose.
The interview was conducted in a room adjacent to a conference venue at Bunker’s Hill Golf Estate in East London, where a training programme for candidates was to be conducted.
According to Rulumeni, DA agents ushered her through a door leading into the female ablution block, to a room where she was told that the interview was due to take place there.
Rulumeni said she was shocked, humiliated and insulted.
And while she was preparing her speech to present to the panellists, a woman with a baby walked past and disappeared into the toilets. Just as she was about to present her speech, the woman and the baby returned from the toilet.
The outcome of her interview was that she was ranked 25th on the candidate list. She was aggrieved by this. Her ranking meant she was unlikely to secure election as a councillor, Rulumeni said.
The DA explained that there was some confusion about the scheduled time for the interview and as the other venues were occupied and they were pressed for time, they decided to use the room leading to the ladies’ toilets.
The DA said under the circumstances it was the best that could be done and Rulumeni assured them she was fine with the arrangement.
According to the DA, the party had no idea at the time that Rulumeni was uncomfortable about the interview venue. It first became aware that she felt that way about a month after the interview, when she lodged an appeal against her ranking on the candidate list.
The DA had meanwhile tendered an apology to Rulumeni during a process mediated by the Human Rights Commission.
The party said it never intended to cause any insult, and accepted, with hindsight, that the choice of the venue was not ideal because it had caused offence to her.
The SCA said the labelling of the venue either as “a toilet” or “an ablution facility” was unhelpful. Rather, the focus should have been on the attributes of the room itself, and its layout. The room served as a changing room or cloak room.
“In the circumstances, the room cannot be described as ‘a toilet’ or ‘an ablution facility’. It is a room from which those facilities are accessed. But that does not make the room either of those.
“To find that the use of the particular space was objectively wrongful it would be necessary to hold that the use of the particular space for an interview does not accord with the values of our society.”
The SCA said given the attributes of the room, it cannot be said that the use of such a space offends the values of society. Even if the use of that particular room for the interview was not ideal, this was not sufficient to establish liability, it ruled. It said for Rulumeni to succeed in her claim, she had to prove that the DA acted with the intention to infringe her dignity.
Pretoria News