Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille on Tuesday called on President Thabo Mbeki to urgently hold a referendum on the fate of the Scorpions.

"The ANC has arrogantly claimed that the duty of Parliament is to simply implement the policy of the ruling party, even if it runs counter to the will of the people," De Lille said.

The ANC had no mandate from the electorate to disband the Scorpions as it never campaigned on this issue in the elections in 2004 and nor did they inform voters of their intention at that time.

"They have no mandate to implement such a controversial policy of national importance without first holding a national referendum on the issue," De Lille said.

The National Assembly's justice and safety and security committees are currently holding public hearings on the legislation to disband the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), or Scorpions.

The hearings are a "farce"

At the start of the hearings on Tuesday, the Freedom Front Plus' Pieter Groenewald questioned the purpose of the exercise, saying government had already decided to disband the unit.

The hearings were a waste of taxpayers' money, he said.

Tertius Delport of the Democratic Alliance agreed, saying the hearings were a farce.

The hearing were "playing to the gallery" and to "bluff the public", he said.

Justice committee chairperson Yunus Carrim countered that South Africa was a democracy and the ruling party had the right to implement its policy by virtue of its majority.

However, all inputs into the legislation would be considered by the committees and the two bills would be dealt with in the same way all other legislation was handled.

And if it was clear that the majority of South Africans, including the governing party's supporters, were opposed to the measure, "surely Parliament must take note", Carrim said.

He and safety and security committee chair Maggie Sotyu stood by their position that only 116 proper written submissions on the legislation had been received.

However, the petitions and signatures, claimed by the DA to total over 100 000 names, would not be ignored.

These would be given "due weight", but did not help the legislative process in that they did not contain concrete proposals on the clauses in the legislation, Carrim said.

Later on Tuesday, Dianne Kohler-Barnard of the DA said she was asking National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete to initiate a full investigation into the conduct of the two chairs and "what appears to be a deliberate attempt to downplay the number of public submissions received".

Sapa