President Cyril Ramaphosa’s lawyer has confirmed he will legally challenge the section 89 report which found his version, in relation to the theft of foreign currency from his Phala Phala game farm, wanting.
Ramaphosa’s lawyer, Peter Harris, confirmed to TimesLIVE Premium on Sunday he had been briefed to approach the apex court to try to review the report’s recommendations.
LISTEN | Phala phala report and its significance
Harris said he would not be able to divulge the grounds of the legal challenge or if this would happen before the planned parliamentary vote on Tuesday to decide whether Ramaphosa should face an impeachment hearing over the game farm controversy.
“When the court papers are filed they will be public documents, and as such, all will be revealed. It is work in progress,” Harris said.
The pending legal challenge comes after a week of high drama which saw Ramaphosa veer between quitting or fighting to retain presidency as critics and supporters weighed in on the panel’s findings and its implications for the country.
Sadtu fully supports that a full and proper investigation be conducted into the Phala Phala Farm issue but detest the abuse of the parliamentary process to settle political scores.
— South African Democratic Teacher’s Union (Sadtu) statement
He was talked out of quitting by ANC provincial leaders and some cabinet ministers who convinced him they would be able to protect him from detractors at the party’s national executive committee (NEC) on Monday.
On Sunday, Ramaphosa told media on the sidelines of the national working committee (NWC) at Nasrec in Johannesburg that his fate lay in the hands of the party’s top leadership.
He made a brief appearance at the NWC and then recused himself to allow them to discuss the panel’s report, headed by retired chief justice Sandile Ngcobo.
In addition to cracking the nod from the NEC to stay on, Ramaphosa will also need ANC MPs to reject the section 89 report and vote against an impeachment on Tuesday. If this doesn’t happen, he will have to step aside and not be able to run for re-election at the ANC conference.
Meanwhile, the SA Democratic Teacher’s Union (Sadtu) has called for an investigation into the conduct of two members of the panel, including Ngcobo and retired chief justice Thokozile Masipa.
Sadtu said it plans to lodge a formal complaint with the Judicial Service Commission.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the trade union, an ally of the ANC, said a review of the report reveals it is “fundamentally flawed” and the panel and its members made findings based on “wholly inadmissible” hearsay evidence which had catapulted the country into a “constitutional crisis”.
Sadtu said it challenged the basis of Ramaphosa’s four main violations, and despite being experts in law, the panel based their findings and conclusions on “hearsay, unverified information, and untested facts”, giving rise to serious constitutional and political implications for the country.
“Like all other organs of civil society, Sadtu fully supports that a full and proper investigation be conducted into the Phala Phala Farm issue but detest the abuse of the parliamentary process to settle political scores in the name of accountability.”
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