Overview
- This week President Cyril Ramaphosa filed an expedited review in the Western Cape High Court seeking to set aside the Section 89 independent panel report and warned he will seek an urgent court order to stop Parliament if it proceeds while the challenge is pending.
- Parliament has named a 31‑member multi‑party impeachment committee and plans to meet next week to elect a chairperson, with the Assembly saying it is taking legal advice on how the president’s court papers affect the committee’s work.
- The Section 89 panel found in 2022 that Ramaphosa may have committed serious misconduct over the 2020 theft of roughly $580,000 at his Phala Phala farm, a finding the president rejects and now disputes in court.
- Opposition parties, led by the EFF, insist the court review does not automatically bar the inquiry and have demanded the Speaker formally oppose Ramaphosa’s challenge and include all parties in Parliament’s legal response.
- The dispute will test South Africa’s institutions because impeachment requires a two‑thirds Assembly vote that the ANC can block, yet the ANC holds only nine of the committee’s 31 seats, leaving the committee’s early direction open and heightening election‑year political stakes.