By Sihle Mavuso
The evidence leader in the Phala Phala impeachment committee, Advocate Griffiths Thandazani Madonsela SC (Senior Counsel), has dismissed concerns by President Cyril Ramaphosa that he may be conflicted and, as such, should recuse himself as the evidence leader in the Phala Phala impeachment committee.
Madonsela also dismissed the concerns raised by the ANC that he is not suitable for the herculean job on the basis that in June this year he provided it with a legal opinion on the same matter.
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This is contained in a letter dated 19 August 2026, which Madonsela wrote to the parliamentary committee after Ramaphosa and the ANC raised objections on 18 August.
Ramaphosa objected on the basis that in March 2022 he removed Madonsela from the JSC (Judicial Services Commission) in 2022 and Madonsela may still be aggrieved by that decision.
Madonsela told Parliament that the provisions of the Constitution and National Assembly rules which the President invokes confer no right to object to, let alone veto, the committee’s choice of the person who is to assist it.
“The President had never been my client, nor a litigant against whom I acted, and I had received no information placing me in a position of conflict. That disclosure was before the Committee when it decided to recommend me. As I understand, the Committee had already considered the criterion of conflict of interest extensively.
In the letter which was seen by Inside Politics, Madonsela also said it appears that Ramaphosa’s letter proceeds on the premise that I will assume “a decision-making or quasi-adjudicative role.”
“This is not my understanding of the role of the evidence leader. Under Rule
129M, the Committee must establish the veracity and, where required, the seriousness of the allegation and report to the Assembly. Questions before the Committee are decided by its members (Rule 129N). The Assembly alone decides whether the President is to be removed, and only by a two-thirds majority (section 89(1) of the Constitution, read with Rules 1290 and 129P). 20.2. The Chief Evidence Leader has no vote, makes no finding and recommends nothing,” he added in the letter.
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He stressed that the alleged apprehension the President advances is therefore not factually grounded.
“It is also contradicted by the contemporaneous record. The President does not allege that I have ever said or done anything suggestive of grievance, and he cannot. Reduced to its core, the submission is that replacement alone suffices. That is obviously untenable. The President appoints, replaces, and dismisses office-holders
continually.
“If each person so affected were presumed to bear a disqualifying grievance, a substantial part of the senior legal profession would be disqualified from any public function touching on him. That is the reactive-bias reasoning which has been rejected by our courts in cases like, at the President’s instance, Democratic Alliance v Public Protector. Applied to an evidence leader, it would allow the subject of an enquiry to disqualify anyone with whom he has had dealings.
When asked about the letter from Madonsela, Alicestine October, the media officer for the committee, said that all correspondence received by the committee, once tabled, is uploaded to the committee website.
“The committee only discusses correspondence as part of its official meetings.”
