IMPEACHMENT: Phala Phala court arguments put presidential accountability under scrutiny

MPs on the parliamentary impeachment committee were due to make new nominations on Friday, 4 September 2026, to finalise their choice of evidence leader for a second time before a scheduled meeting next Wednesday.

On 1 September, the committee rescinded its decision to recommend advocate Thandazani Madonsela after President Cyril Ramaphosa objected that the advocate “may harbour a sense of grievance towards me” over his removal as presidential rep on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) in March 2022, and over legal work for the ANC. 

While a parliamentary legal opinion found no actual grounds for a conflict of interest, it took a narrow view of Madonsela’s prior disclosure that he had supervised a junior’s brief to a “parliamentary study group”. That the ANC was subsequently publicly named as the client by its Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula was deemed new and relevant to the impeachment committee’s terms of reference on perceived conflicts of interest.

MPs of the Government of National Unity (GNU) coalition partners made much of this. In contrast, opposition MPs pointed out the only party in Parliament with study groups is the ANC. However, a vote of 18 to nine dropped Madonsela and restarted the search.

This development underscores the contested nature of impeachment proceedings playing out in Parliament and the courts.

‘A scheme to stop accountability’

For now, the parliamentary impeachment committee is interdicted from holding public hearings after Ramaphosa in July successfully obtained this court order pending the finalisation of his review of the Section 89 panel report.

That review unfolded over the past three days before a full Bench of the Western Cape Division of the High Court, with arguments on evidentiary thresholds, process and presidential reputational harm in a case that could set a precedent in presidential removals from office.

“No president, provided this one succeeds, will ever be subjected to impeachment proceedings,” the EFF’s advocate Mfesane ka-Siboto told the court on Thursday.

When Western Cape Judge President Nolwazi Mabindla-Boqwana asked if the report could never be reviewed, he replied it could, but not now as the parliamentary impeachment process was still under way and the president had failed to make out exceptional circumstances.

“If he had been concerned about his reputation, he would not have left the report unchallenged for the past four years,” Ka-Siboto said.

Ramaphosa brought this review litigation after the Constitutional Court in May 2026 effectively relaunched impeachment proceedings by setting aside the December 2022 National Assembly vote in which the ANC used its parliamentary majority to vote down the Section 89 report. The apex court in early 2023 had dismissed Ramaphosa’s direct access application to review the report, and it was left there.

On Friday, advocate Dali Mpofu, for the MK party, argued that the president was using delaying tactics and that, if his review were to succeed, it would stall accountability.

“We are going to be here 17 times,” he said in reference to the different steps of the parliamentary impeachment rule. “If the court allows that to happen, the court will participate in a scheme to stop accountability.”

That emphasis on Ramaphosa’s accountability – and that this trumped potential presidential discomfort and irreparable harm – was the thread through legal arguments by the African Transformation Movement (ATM), whose leader brought the original impeachment motion in July 2022, the MK party, EFF and the United Africans Transformation (UAT). 

They maintained the Section 89 panel report had provided sufficient evidence for Ramaphosa to appear before the parliamentary impeachment committee.

‘The national interest’

It was up to UAT advocate Thabani Masuku to explain Parliament’s paralysis on holding the president to account if Ramaphosa’s review application succeeded, arguing that the parliamentary process could not be halted midstream.

Judge Ncumisa Mayosi had pointed out that the impeachment motion, and the Speaker’s referral, would still stand and allow parliamentary accountability proceedings, adding: “The constitutional process of holding the president to account must have integrity.”

Earlier in proceedings, it emerged, depending on further litigation, that the impeachment process could return to the National Assembly to again decide on whether to pursue the process. Given the dominance of GNU coalition partners in the House, the politics of this matter may end presidential impeachment.

Throughout the hearing, the judges brought arguments back to the Section 89 panel report’s charges, centred around violations of conduct standards enshrined in Section 96 of the Constitution: that Ramaphosa, through his Phala Phala farm, did paid work, and that he had a conflict of interest and abused the office in relation to the off-the-books investigation by his protection detail head, including travel to Namibia. Another charge is Ramaphosa’s failure to report the theft in accordance with the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act.

Ramaphosa’s advocate, Wim Trengove, in his replying affidavit argued that the Section 89 panel’s failure to ask the right questions, properly evaluate the information, and consider the irreparable reputational harm of the process to the president “… will be damaging to the national interest, the public interest. Further, the very process, the impeachment inquiry and the outcomes could be destabilising to the effective governance of the country.”

Judgment was reserved. Mabindla-Boqwana said that while “the nation and everyone is waiting to hear” the outcome, the court needed to “think carefully” but would deliver its ruling as soon as possible. DM