SUSPENDED ANC Secretary-General Ace Magashule’s application for a leave to appeal his suspension from the ANC has been dismissed with costs.
Magashule was also seeking the validation of his own suspension of President Cyril Ramaphosa, which was also dismissed by the court because his counsel, advocate Dali Mpofu SC, was not telling the truth in his submission that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s counsel stated their client was not going to be told by them when to file papers since he was the country’s number one.
The Johannesburg High Court found that there were no reasonable prospects that an appeals court could rule differently.
During the original application Magashule mounted against the ANC and Ramaphosa, the president filed his affidavit late but asked for condonation, which was granted by the court.
But in his application for leave to appeal, Magashule claimed Ramaphosa’s lawyers had stated: “The applicant [Magashule] ought to understand that he cannot dictate timelines to the first respondent as he is the president of SA”.
The full bench has since found this submission to be “quite extraordinary” and “factually wrong [as] no such statement was made and the court did not make any such finding”.
Another is his misreading of the court order affirming his suspension, in respect of his plea that the court strike out Ramaphosa’s entire affidavit and some documents submitted by the ANC and its deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte.
The ANC suspended him in May after refusing to step aside in accordance with the governing party’s resolution taken at Nasrec in 2017.
According to the ANC resolution, party members who are charged with serious criminal offices should step until their cases are finalised.
Magashule is charged with corruption related to a multi-million-rand asbestos project when he was Premier of the Free State.
Magashule also insists that he was correct in suspending party president Ramaphosa a few months.
However, in August, the South Gauteng High Court ruled that the ANC was within its right to suspend Magashule after he failed to comply with its step-aside rule which stipulates that criminally charged members must vacate their position until their matters are finalised.
- Own Correspondent
