The Constitutional Court today revived Parliament’s Section 89 impeachment inquiry into President Cyril Ramaphosa over the Phala Phala scandal. In a judgment written by Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, the court overturned the December 2022 parliamentary vote that had effectively buried the matter, sending the panel’s report straight to a parliamentary impeachment committee instead. Six months before the local government elections, Phala Phala is back. But the maths probably still favours Ramaphosa.
What the Court actually ordered
The Constitutional Court did not rule on whether Ramaphosa should be impeached. Instead, it ruled that Parliament handled the process badly the first time around. The judges struck down National Assembly Rule 129I, the rule that allowed MPs to simply vote away the independent panel’s findings. That means the 13 December 2022 vote, where 214 ANC and allied MPs blocked the process while 148 supported it, has now been declared irrational and invalid.
The court also sent the panel’s report directly to Parliament’s impeachment committee. That report, chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo, found there was a prima facie case that Ramaphosa may have seriously violated the Constitution. In legal speak, “prima facie” basically means there was enough evidence for the matter to move forward. There was one dissent. Justice Jody Kollapen agreed the rule itself was unconstitutional, but said the original 2022 vote should have been left alone.
What happens next, and the math
The impeachment committee will now hear evidence and report back to Parliament on whether Ramaphosa committed a serious constitutional violation, serious misconduct, or is unable to perform his duties. If the committee recommends removal, MPs then vote. And this is where the maths starts to do the heavy lifting for Ramaphosa.
Removing a president under Section 89 requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament, 267 out of 400 MPs. The ANC alone has 159 seats in the current Parliament. So even if every opposition party voted to remove Ramaphosa, at least 67 ANC MPs would still need to rebel against their own president. That would be politically explosive. And it has never happened before. Jacob Zuma survived nine no-confidence motions between 2009 and 2018. In the end, he was not removed by Parliament. The ANC recalled him first.
How the parties responded
- For the EFF, which brought the case, the judgment was pure vindication. Speaking outside Constitution Hill, Julius Malema said, “You cannot vote to protect criminality. You cannot vote to protect corruption because every vote must be accompanied by rationality.”
- The DA, awkwardly now both Ramaphosa critics and his coalition partners in the GNU, tried to walk a careful line. New federal leader Geordin Hill-Lewis said, “We will not prejudge the outcome. But nor will we allow any person, no matter how high their office, to be placed above accountability.”
- ATM leader Vuyo Zungula, whose party joined the case, said, “The only rational thing to do would be to further scrutinise”
The Presidency, meanwhile, kept its diplomatic stance. Before the judgment was delivered, it told eNCA that “Whatever the courts decide is what the court decides. Respect of our judiciary is sacrosanct.”
The bigger picture
The scandal that the ANC politically buried in December 2022 is heading back to Parliament, and Ramaphosa will now have to defend himself before an impeachment committee for the first time. What probably does not change is the outcome. The numbers in Parliament still do not seem to exist to remove him. As constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos argued back in 2022, Ramaphosa may actually have been better off facing the inquiry than trying to avoid it. The Constitutional Court has now effectively made that decision for him.
The bigger risk may be political, not legal. The hearings are likely to unfold alongside local government election campaigning, meaning Phala Phala could become an election-season headache the ANC thought it had locked away years ago.
