ANC Secretary-General, Ace Magashule, is gearing up to mount a fierce legal battle in the Johannesburg high court on Thursday and Friday in a desperate bid to overturn his suspension from the party.
Magashule, already at odds with his party for refusing to apologize to ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa, says he is ready to do whatever it takes to duke it out with the party’s top leadership in court to reverse his suspension.
Magashule has launched a court application to challenge his suspension, which happened when he failed to step aside over the corruption charges against him.
He is also expected to ask the court that the party’s interpretation of its 2017 “step-aside” conference resolution be declared invalid and unconstitutional.
Ramaphosa, the party’s deputy Secretary-General Jessie Duarte and the ANC are the first, second and third respondents, respectively.
The matter was initially scheduled to be heard during the first week of June, but was moved to June 24 and 25 partly because Magashule insisted that it be heard by a full bench.
In an interview with eNCA on Wednesday, Magashule said he will prove the action taken against him was a political witch hunt.
“I have been jumping like a tennis ball. I’m flying higher and higher today like an eagle. I’m in good spirit and high morale,” said Magashule.
“I’m still prepared to engage the organization but I’m doing this in the light of the resolution of conference which people now want to overrule. There are about nine to 10 clauses in terms of fighting corruption and I will prove in court that this is political witch hunt.”
In his court papers, Magashule quotes ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Dakota Legoete’s view that the step-aside rule is being applied selectively, and factionally, rather than to achieve the stated goal of eliminating corruption with the ranks of the ANC.
“He significantly points out that the ANC has been consumed with factionalism at the expense of much needed projects which can change the fortunes of the citizens,” says Magashule.
Magashule also argues that the state organs and in particular the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) operates selectively against a faction which didn’t support Ramaphosa at the 2017 elective conference.
In a responding affidavit, Duarte described Magashule’s court challenge as absurd and incoherent.
She said has been part of all meetings at which the step-aside rule was discussed, and “knew very well that if he did not step aside he would be suspended”.
“The applicant has supported the decisions, rules and resolutions that he now challenges. He does so because they no longer suit his personal position,” Duarte says in court papers, responding to Magashule’s legal challenge to his suspension.
Duarte said it is simply incorrect that this matter is urgent, because in the applicant’s view the purported crisis in the ANC spells a crisis for all South Africans, whether or not they support or vote for the ANC.
“This contention is merely atmospheric and has no basis whatsoever. This application is about one individual only, namely the applicant (Magashule), who has failed to follow prescripts and resolutions of his own organisation’s instruction that people like him, who are charged criminally, should step aside if they cannot give acceptable explanations to the integrity commission of their own organisation,” says Duarte.
“It is simply not correct that this case places the nation closer to a crisis. There is no crisis.”
Meanwhile, a number of interested parties from the ANC have applied to intervene in Magashule’s court case against the party as amicus curiae, or friend of the court.
Like Magashule, they are also questioning the constitutionality of the ANC’s Rule 25.70 on disciplinary action, “as well as the decisions by the ANC [national executive committee] and ANC [national working committee] as far as they purport to reformulate, redraw, and implement the impugned resolution.”
- Inside Politics
