President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the founding speaker of the National Assembly, post democracy, Dr Frene Ginwala, who has died, aged 90.
The Presidency announced in a statement that Ginwala died yesterday following a stroke two weeks ago.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says Ginwala was a formidable patriot to whom justice and democracy around the globe remained an objective to her last days.
We have lost another giant among a special generation of leaders to whom we owe our freedom and to whom we owe our commitment to keep building the South Africa to which they devoted their all.#RIPFreneGinwala pic.twitter.com/pGsuQxhSKy
— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) January 13, 2023
Ramaphosa has offered his sincere condolences to Dr Ginwala’s family, her nephews Cyrus, Sohrab and Zavareh, and their families.
The President also extended his condolences to Dr Ginwala’s friends, colleagues and associates in South Africa and beyond.
The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) says Ginwala was a great constitutionalist and a champion for gender equality and the rights of women.
CASAC executive secretary Lawson Naidoo said she was a role model for strong, principled women everywhere, and was held in very high esteem globally.
Frene was a fiercely independent-minded woman, who would never sacrifice her principles on the altar of political expediency. She provided CASAC with staunch support, and on a personal level, I was very fortunate to benefit from her mentorship over many decades. South Africa has lost one of its greatest champions for justice and constitutional accountability.
Naidoo worked with Ginwala in exile before 1994 and subsequently, after their return to South Africa, was her political advisor during the first parliament of the democratic era, when Dr Ginwala led the institution with distinction as its first Speaker.
Naidoo says the first democratic parliament of 1994-99 was a golden age for legislative reform and institution-building.
Dr Ginwala was passionate about parliament and the role it could play in building a strong participatory as well as representative democracy. She cared deeply about how parliament should set the highest standards, and be truly accessible to all South Africans.
But he says Ginwala was saddened by what she saw as the erosion of some aspects of the system of constitutional accountability over the past decade, especially the weakening of parliament as a critical cog in a functioning democracy and the diminution of its institutional dignity.
But she was not disheartened, as she believed that the Constitution has proved its value in protecting people’s rights and in withstanding attacks from malignant forces. In her name, we must continue to defend the principle of accountability and to rebuild parliament as truly the ‘people’s parliament’, as she branded it during her time as Speaker.
The Chief Whip of the DA in Parliament also paid tribute to Dr Ginwala:
Our deepest condolences to the Ginwala family & friends.
Frene Ginwala was the first Speaker of the National Assembly in democratic SA.
She presided over a Parliament that repealed many Apartheid laws and contributed to the drafting of the Constitution. May she rest in peace. pic.twitter.com/tDzdKyj68U
— Siviwe Gwarube (@Siviwe_G) January 13, 2023
Born on 25 April 1932, Frene Noshir Ginwala served the anti-apartheid struggle and South Africa’s democratic dispensation in a diversity of roles as a lawyer, academic, political leader, activist and journalist.
In 2005, she was honoured with the Order of Luthuli in Silver for her excellent contribution to the struggle against gender oppression and her tireless contribution to the struggle for a non-sexist, non-racial, just and democratic South Africa.
The Presidency says Government respects the family’s wishes for a private funeral.
Details of an official memorial event for Dr Ginwala will be announced in due course.
