Wayne Lumbasi
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa secured a major legal victory on Friday when the Western Cape High Court granted an interim interdict temporarily halting Parliament’s Section 89 impeachment inquiry against him. The ruling pauses public committee hearings into the long-running “Farmgate” scandal pending the outcome of Ramaphosa’s formal legal challenge to review and set aside the findings of an independent panel report.
Delivering the judgment, Judge André le Grange announced a majority decision by a full bench of judges in favor of the president’s urgent application. Representing the president, Advocate Wim Trengove had argued that forcing Ramaphosa to undergo public impeachment proceedings based on an underlying report that remains legally contested would cause severe and irreversible reputational harm to the head of state. The court accepted that Ramaphosa established a valid prima facie case for interim relief, freezing all committee proceedings until full judicial review hearings take place.
The legal battle stems from a February 2020 burglary at Ramaphosa’s private Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo Province, where an estimated $580,000 in cash was stolen from inside sofa cushions. The controversy erupted publicly in 2022 following allegations that the president failed to report the crime through proper law enforcement channels, allegedly deploying presidential protection officers to conduct an off-the-record investigation. Ramaphosa has consistently denied any wrongdoing, maintaining that the foreign currency was legitimate revenue from the sale of buffaloes to a foreign buyer.
An independent advisory panel chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo previously concluded that there was initial evidence suggesting Ramaphosa may have committed a serious violation of the constitution. While Parliament initially voted in late 2022 against adopting the panel’s findings, a Constitutional Court judgment earlier this year invalidated that vote, forcing Parliament to initiate the formal impeachment committee process.
In response to Friday’s ruling, the Presidency issued a brief statement confirming it had noted the judgment and reiterating that Ramaphosa remains committed to respecting judicial independence and the constitutional separation of powers. Opposition parties, including the Economic Freedom Fighters and the Democratic Alliance, noted that the interdict is strictly temporary, as parliamentary proceedings will immediately resume if the High Court dismisses Ramaphosa’s main review application later this year.
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