CAPE TOWN, Western Cape — The Western Cape High Court has issued an interdict halting Parliament’s Impeachment Committee from continuing its public proceedings, effectively pausing the impeachment process against President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) has weighed in on the development, highlighting the judiciary’s constitutional mandate to arbitrate disputes between the executive and legislative branches.
President Ramaphosa approached the court to stop the impeachment proceedings pending his application to review the Section 89 Independent Panel report. The panel had previously found that the President had a case to answer regarding alleged theft at his Phala Phala farm. The High Court’s decision was delivered in a split three-way judgment, with two judges concurring in favor of granting the interdict to the President and one issuing a dissenting judgment. The full written reasons for the judgment are yet to be released.
Lawson Naidoo, Executive Secretary of CASAC, described the interdict as a temporary victory for the President. He noted that the substantive part of the parliamentary process, including the inquiry phase and the calling of witnesses, will remain on hold until the President’s main review application is heard in early September.
Addressing the potential way forward, Naidoo explained that if the President succeeds in his review application and a court sets aside the independent panel’s report, the constitutional basis for the impeachment process would collapse, bringing it to a permanent halt. Conversely, if the review is unsuccessful, the impeachment committee will proceed with testing the evidence against the President, based on the charges outlined in the motion passed by Parliament in 2022.
When questioned about the possibility of an immediate appeal against the interdict, Naidoo clarified that urgent applications do not leave scope for immediate appeals, making this a final and binding order for now. Any future appeals would likely emanate from the main review application’s outcome.
Meanwhile, the impeachment committee is still scheduled to meet next Wednesday to finalize the appointment of evidence leaders and establish its terms of reference. Naidoo suggested that finalizing the terms of reference remains a useful exercise that could pave the way for future parliamentary impeachment processes, ensuring the legislative work is not wasted. However, he noted that the actual appointment and finalization of arrangements for evidence leaders will likely be delayed pending the review application’s finalization.
Addressing broader concerns about the judiciary instructing Parliament, which some critics argue blurs the separation of powers, Naidoo firmly defended the court’s intervention. He stated that this dynamic is precisely the nature of the separation of powers among the three arms of the state. He pointed out that the Constitution explicitly empowers the courts to act as final arbiters when disagreements arise between the legislature and the executive.
Naidoo drew a parallel to a Constitutional Court judgment in May of this year, which declared one of Parliament’s rules unconstitutional, noting that it is inconsistent to demand judicial intervention in some instances while rejecting it in others. He concluded that courts possess the limited but necessary jurisdiction to intervene when constitutional principles are not followed, affirming that the President’s right not to be unfairly prejudiced temporarily outweighs Parliament’s procedural momentum.
