Ramaphosa wins round one, impeachment put on ice

By Anita Dangazele

• A court has stopped Parliament’s impeachment committee from holding public hearings, until Ramaphosa’s own separate court case is decided.

• The committee can still do preparatory work behind the scenes in the meantime, like appointing lawyers and preparing witnesses.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has won a court bid to stop Parliament’s impeachment committee from holding public hearings against him, for now.

The Western Cape High Court made the ruling on Friday.

The court said the committee cannot hold public hearings until a separate court case, one where Ramaphosa is challenging an earlier report about him, is finished.

Judge André le Grange, reading out the order, said the committee must wait until that other case is decided.

He said the judges did not all agree on this decision, and that who pays the legal costs will be decided later.

That earlier report was written by a panel led by former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo. It found that Ramaphosa may have a case to answer over money stolen from his Phala Phala farm.

Ramaphosa is challenging that report in a separate court case, set down for 2 to 4 September. He says the report is wrong and wants it thrown out before any public hearings start.

Ramaphosa’s lawyer, Wim Trengove, argued that going through public hearings before that other case is decided could damage the president’s reputation in a way that could never be fixed, even if he’s later found innocent.

Opposition parties, including the EFF, MK Party, ATM and UAT, disagreed. They said Ramaphosa was simply trying to delay the process, not protect himself.

Committee chairperson Makashule Gana had said before the ruling that the committee would keep working “until a court told it otherwise.”

He also pointed out that Ramaphosa’s own lawyers had told the court the committee’s current work, appointing lawyers to lead the case, preparing witnesses, and finalising its rules, wasn’t what the court order was even asking to stop. That behind-the-scenes work can continue. It’s only the actual public hearings that are on hold for now.

This case started after the Constitutional Court ruled in May that Parliament broke the law back in 2022, when it voted to ignore the Ngcobo panel’s report instead of acting on it.

Ramaphosa has always denied doing anything wrong.

Pictured above: President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Image source:The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa