Karabo Ngoepe|Published2 hours agoCyril Ramaphosa’s fate: The Constitutional reckoning at South Africa’s highest court

The Constitutional Court is expected to deliver the much-awaited Phala Phala judgment. As the Highveld autumn morning breaks on Friday, with a cold breeze permeating the air of Braamfontein, the world holds its breath, and all eyes will be glued to the Constitutional Court. ANC supporters and civil society activists will drift into the plaza carrying placards and banners.

Television crews will be staking out positions along the sandstone walls, and civil society activists will be unfurling banners. At 10am on Friday morning, Chief Justice Mandisa Maya and her fellow justices will deliver the judgment South Africa has been waiting 521 days to hear. To arrive at Constitutional Hill is to understand immediately that this place was designed to mean something.

The court was built using bricks from the demolished awaiting-trial wing of the former prison. Most of the old prison’s stairwells were kept and incorporated into the new building as a reminder of the Constitution’s transformative aspirations. Inside the main chamber, a row of horizontal windows sits at head height on the inside, but at ground level outside, so those in the courtroom see the feet of passersby moving above the judges’ heads.

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A deliberate reminder, set in glass and stone, that justice serves the people. Nelson Mandela was held here. Mahatma Gandhi was held here.

The Flame of Democracy burns outside the wooden entrance doors, lit in 2011 to mark the anniversary of the Constitution’s signing. This morning it burns as it does every morning. The question before the court today is whether the document it represents burns as brightly.

The matter traces back to the February 2020 burglary at Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo, in which a large sum of foreign currency, reportedly around $580,000, was stolen from furniture at the President’s private residence. A burglary the world would not have known about, hadSunday Independentnot broken it onIOL. Ramaphosamaintained that the money was a payment from a Sudanese businessman for the purchase of 20 buffalo.

The Section 89 Independent Panel, chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, found significant gaps in that explanation, including why the animals remained on the farm over two years later and the absence of official tax records. The panel found prima facie evidence that Ramaphosa may have committed serious constitutional violations: failure to report the theft through proper legal channels, potential conflict of interest through active involvement in private business, and abuse of office through a secret investigation that reached as far as Namibia. IPID confirmed the transgressions, finding that “Major General W.P. Rhoode failed to register or ensure that a case docket of housebreaking and theft was opened.” Rhoode remains the head of the Presidential Protection Unit today.

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