Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interest

The Joint Committee on Ethics and Members' Interest is a joint committee of the Parliament of South Africa that deals with the ethical conduct of Members of Parliament and the disclosure of their financial interests. Its primary function is to promote and oversee the implementation of the parliamentary code of conduct, including by publishing the annual Register of Members' Interests and conducting disciplinary hearings to investigate allegations of misconduct by Members of Parliament.

In the 27th Parliament, the Committee comprises 14 members from the National Assembly and nine delegates from the National Council of Provinces. On 11 September 2019, Bekizwe Nkosi (of the National Assembly) and Lydia Moshodi (of the National Council of Provinces) were elected as its co-chairpersons.

History and activities
The committee was established in 1999 at the outset of the 23rd Parliament in a merger between the Committee on Ethics (spearheaded by Kader Asmal) and the Committee on Members' Interests. Bernard Ncube was the inaugural chairperson, with Lawrence Mushwana as her deputy.

Since then, the committee has held several high-profile proceedings, including disciplinary investigations into the conduct of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Deputy President Jacob Zuma, Yolanda Botha, and Dina Pule. In such cases, the Committee makes disciplinary findings and recommends sanctions, but these must be adopted by Parliament in a plenary before they are implemented. The committee has sometimes been criticised as being overly lax in enforcing disciplinary standards.

List of chairpersons
Since the outset of the 25th Parliament in 2009, the committee has had two co-chairpersons, one representing the National Assembly and one representing the National Council of Provinces. To date, all chairpersons have been members of the African National Congress (ANC), the national governing party.