Call for ruling on religion body

THE Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural‚ Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) has called for the Constitutional Court to make a declaratory order regarding the commission’s powers.

In a report last year, the CRL found that the Mancoba brothers of the Seven Angels Ministries church‚ which has been linked to last week’s Ngcobo police massacre‚ was operating as a cult.

The church was the scene of a bloody shootout last week in which seven people suspected to have been involved in the attack on Wednesday last week on the Ngcobo police station were killed by police.

CRL chairwoman Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said if the commission’s recommendations had been heeded‚ the massacre at Ngcobo might never have happened.

“We saw there was a crisis about to happen,” she said. “We informed everyone about it.”

“We are not taking parliament to court.

“We need the court to tell us if we did not follow procedure.

“We want the court to issue a declaratory order on what our powers are.

“We made recommendations [regarding the religious sector].

“We are saying religious practitioners must be regulated.”

Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said if the court found that the CRL’s recommendations were in violation of the constitution‚ they would have to decide on the next step.

“We feel powerless that we can’t do what the constitution asked us to do‚ which is to protect the rights of religious communities,” she said.

“We feel disempowered and yes‚ we feel this is the end of the road for us.”

In its report last year on the commercialisation and abuse of people’s beliefs‚ the CRL recommended that every religious practitioner must be registered and fall under umbrella organisations.

It also recommended that every registered religious leader should have a location where he or she conducted religious ceremonies.

Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said that the commission’s legal team was drafting papers which they would file at the Constitutional Court.