PRESIDENT Cyril Ramaphosa did not deliberately mislead Parliament about donations to his CR17 campaign, according to a ruling by the Constitutional Court on Thursday.
Justice Chris Jafta said Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, who investigated the matter, got the facts and law wrong.
“Therefore, the Public Protector was wrong on the facts and the law with regards to the issue whether the president had willfully misled Parliament and the high court was right to set aside her finding,” the judge said.
“There is no merit in the argument advanced by [the Public Protector and the EFF]. Both the Constitution and the Public Protector Act do not empower the Public Protector to investigate private affairs of political parties. Political parties do not perform a public function or exercise a public power as it is a private affair not a state affair.”
Ramaphosa’s campaign gathered in excess of R300 million and his detractors in the ruling African National Congress have called for the list of donors to be made public.
Those rivals have also rallied behind Mkhwebane, who’s had a series of her findings overturned by the courts.
The top court’s ruling came two days after it sentenced Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, to 15 months in prison for defying its order to testify before a graft inquiry. Mkhwebane has been seen to be a Zuma ally, and parliament is considering whether to remove her on grounds of misconduct, incapacity or incompetence.
The judgment was scathing on Mkhwebane’s findings in her report.
According to the Constitutional Court justices, the majority judgment held that Mkhwebane’s finding was fatally defective because she was not authorised to investigate whether Ramaphosa personally benefitted from donations made to the CR17 campaign.
Section 4 of the Members Act mandates the public protector to investigate violations of the code only if there is a complaint by one of the personas listed in the section, and the complaints received by her did not require her to the president’s failure to disclose benefits derived from the CR17 campaign donations.
The court further said that because Mkhwebane’s report revealed that on the facts placed before her, the president did not wilfully mislead parliament, he therefore could not have violated the Code.
The majority agreed with the High Court that her finding in this regard constituted a material error of law and fell to be set aside.
On the issue whether the president had personally benefitted from the CR17 campaign donations, the majority judgment held that the public protector’s conclusion that the president had personally benefitted was not substantiated by her own report which contained the summary of the evidence she heard during the investigation.
Tyrone Seale, acting spokesperson to the President, said President Cyril Ramaphosa welcomes and respects the ruling delivered by the Constitutional Court on Thursday.
- Inside Politics
