By Johnathan Paoli
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of attempting to evade accountability through the courts after he confirmed that he would seek a judicial review of the Section 89 independent panel report into the Phala Phala scandal rather than resign.
In a statement after the President’s address on Monday night, EFF spokesperson Sinawo Thambo said the president’s decision proved that he would go to any lengths to avoid facing the music.
“His decision affirms precisely what the EFF has consistently maintained that Cyril Ramaphosa will exhaust every political and legal mechanism available to evade accountability and avoid facing an impeachment inquiry before Parliament,” Thambo said.
The EFF described the review application as “fundamentally opportunistic” and accused Ramaphosa of acting out of “political convenience and self-preservation”.
The party argued that Ramaphosa had initially approached the courts in December 2022 after the independent panel found prima facie evidence that he may have violated the Constitution and his oath of office, but later abandoned the challenge once the ANC used its parliamentary majority to block the impeachment process.
“Once the ANC used its parliamentary majority to irrationally and unconstitutionally suppress the report and block the impeachment process, Ramaphosa quietly withdrew that review application because he believed the matter had been politically buried forever,” Thambo said.
“Now, nearly four years later, after the Constitutional Court declared the ANC-led parliamentary process unlawful and ordered that the report be properly referred for an impeachment inquiry, Ramaphosa suddenly seeks to revive legal challenges against the very same report he previously abandoned,” he added.
The party said it would oppose Ramaphosa’s review application in court and push for the matter to be heard urgently.
“The EFF will therefore join the review application in opposition to President Ramaphosa and will demand that the matter be treated with urgency on the court roll, precisely because it concerns a matter of profound national importance,” Thambo said.
The EFF also argued that Ramaphosa’s legal challenge should not interrupt Parliament’s impeachment process, saying it was their view that the Constitutional Court order directing Parliament to establish an impeachment committee remained binding.
The party called on National Assembly Speaker Thoko Didiza to oppose Ramaphosa’s review application because the independent panel had been established through Parliament under her authority.
The latest developments come after the Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that aspects of Parliament’s Section 89 impeachment rules were unconstitutional.
The case was brought by the EFF and the African Transformation Movement after the National Assembly voted in December 2022 against establishing an impeachment committee despite an independent panel finding that Ramaphosa may have serious questions to answer over the 2020 theft of foreign currency from his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo.
The panel, chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, found there was prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa may have committed serious misconduct and violated the Constitution.
However, the ANC-majority Parliament voted against proceeding with an impeachment inquiry, effectively halting the process at the time.
The apex court subsequently overturned that decision and ordered that the panel report be referred to Parliament’s impeachment committee.
Ramaphosa insisted that the judgment did not require him to step down and maintained that the court had made no findings on his conduct.
The president argued that the report contained “grave errors of law and unfounded conclusions of fact” and said he remained committed to serving out his mandate as president.
But the EFF said no president should be allowed to indefinitely frustrate constitutional accountability through litigation.
“If Cyril Ramaphosa had any conscience, political integrity, or respect for the people of South Africa and the constitutional order he swore to uphold, he would resign and allow the country to move forward,” Thambo said.
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