CYRIL RAMAPHOSA INTENDS TO APPLY FOR REVIEW OF SECTION 89 REPORT ON PHALA-PHALA
BY : CHANON LECODEY MERRICKS ONLINE EDITOR KASiBC_AFRiCA
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has taken note of reports that President Cyril Ramaphosa is considering a judicial review of the Section 89 Independent Panel Report chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo.
These reports reveal a desperate litigation strategy, which comes immediately after the Constitutional Court correctly ruled that Parliament acted unlawfully and unconstitutionally when it used the ANC’s numerical majority to block the implementation of the Independent Panel’s findings and prevent the establishment of an impeachment inquiry into the Phala Phala scandal. South Africans must be reminded that before Cyril Ramaphosa abused the ANC’s parliamentary majority to shield himself from accountability, he had already indicated his intention to challenge the Section 89 Panel Report through the courts.
On 5 December 2022, Ramaphosa formally launched an application seeking to review and set aside the findings of the panel after it found that there was prima facie evidence that he violated the Constitution and his oath of office.
However, after the ANC used its parliamentary majority on 13 December 2022 to irrationally and unconstitutionally suppress the report and block the impeachment process, Ramaphosa abandoned his review application.
In May 2023, his spokesperson openly admitted that the President no longer wished to pursue the review because Parliament’s unlawful vote had rendered the report “moot” and of “no practical and legal consequence”.
This sequence of events exposes Cyril Ramaphosa as a constitutional delinquent who has never sought genuine judicial clarity on the merits of the report but has instead relied on political manipulation and procedural delay to evade accountability. If Ramaphosa truly believed that the Independent Panel Report was fundamentally defective, irrational, or unlawful, he would have pursued his review application to finality in 2022 and 2023.
Instead, he opportunistically withdrew the matter once he believed the ANC’s parliamentary majority had permanently buried the report. Now that the Constitutional Court has correctly declared that the parliamentary vote was unconstitutional and invalid, Ramaphosa is contemplating a review application once again, in order to hide behind court proceedings and to delay, frustrate, and ultimately avoid the inevitable impeachment inquiry.
This conduct demonstrates profound disrespect not only for Parliament, but also for the judiciary and the constitutional order itself. The EFF maintains that the courts should dismiss with contempt any renewed attempt by Ramaphosa to litigate against the Section 89 Independent Panel Report nearly four years after its publication.
The Constitutional Court, through our diligence as the EFF, has already restored constitutional order by invalidating the ANC’s unlawful parliamentary protection racket.
The next step must be the immediate establishment of the impeachment inquiry contemplated by Section 89 of the Constitution.
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