BREAKING NEWS: Court grants Ramaphosa interdict, pauses Phala Phala impeachment

President Cyril Ramaphosa has won his court bid to temporarily halt Parliament’s impeachment process over the Phala Phala scandal after the Western Cape High Court granted an interim interdict on Friday. The ruling means the National Assembly’s impeachment committee must suspend its work until Ramaphosa’s review application challenging the findings of the Section 89 independent panel has been heard. The judgment was handed down by Judges André le Grange, Matthew Francis and Diane Davis after two days of argument in the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town last week.

Ramaphosa approached the court seeking to prevent the impeachment inquiry from proceeding until the court decides whether the Section 89 panel’s findings should be reviewed and set aside. The panel had previously found that the president had questions to answer over the theft of approximately $580 000 (about R9.6 million) from his Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo in February 2020. In court, Ramaphosa’s legal team argued that allowing the impeachment committee to begin its work before the review application is decided would cause the president “irrefutable harm”.

Delivering judgment, Le Grange said the court had “carefully” considered the arguments presented by all parties before issuing three separate judgments. The judge said the first judgment found that Ramaphosa had failed to establish a case. “It proposes that the application should be dismissed,” Le Grange said. However, the second and third judgments granted an interim interdict for a limited period.