Court halts Ramaphosa inquiry hearings; legal challenge stalls parliamentary investigation

A Western Cape High Court order issued Friday has frozen the parliamentary committee investigating President Cyril Ramaphosa, blocking it from holding public hearings while the court considers whether the foundational report underpinning the entire inquiry should stand.

Judge Andre le Grange granted Ramaphosa’s request to pause proceedings, halting the committee’s work until his legal challenge to a November 2022 independent panel report is resolved. That report concluded the president “may have committed” serious violations and misconduct linked to undeclared foreign currency found at his private Phala Phala farmhouse in Limpopo province. The committee cannot advance its mandate until the court rules.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.trtafrika.com/english/article/c9d2fe04db26.

The September hearing is now the critical operational milestone. The Western Cape High Court will hear Ramaphosa’s bid to overturn the 2022 report at that point, and the outcome will determine whether the committee retains any basis to proceed. If the report is invalidated, the committee’s mandate collapses with it.

The underlying facts of the case date to a 2020 break-in at the Phala Phala ranch, during which $580,000 was stolen. Ramaphosa has maintained he reported the theft to police and that the money came from the sale of 20 buffaloes. A former intelligence official with ties to Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma filed the original complaint, alleging the president concealed $4 million from law enforcement and tax authorities. Ramaphosa has denied wrongdoing throughout.

The impeachment process itself has followed an unusually stop-start path. In 2022, the National Assembly voted to reject the panel’s findings, effectively shutting down proceedings at a time when Ramaphosa’s African National Congress held a parliamentary majority. The Constitutional Court overturned that vote in May of this year, forcing parliament to establish the committee now sitting idle under the court’s order. The public prosecutor had separately dropped criminal charges against Ramaphosa in 2024, closing that avenue while the parliamentary process was being revived.

By contrast, the committee’s suspension leaves the question of whether South Africa will see its first presidential impeachment hearing entirely unresolved, with no hearing date possible before September at the earliest.

Following Friday’s ruling, Ramaphosa’s office issued a statement: “The President reaffirms his respect of judicial independence and separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution,” adding that “the President will continue to cooperate with and abide by processes of accountability.” Opposition parties had previously criticized Ramaphosa for what they characterized as attempts to avoid accountability, and the court challenge has drawn similar criticism.

The committee’s operational position is now straightforward: it waits. Judge le Grange’s order means no public hearings, no forward movement, and no resolution until the court in September decides whether the 2022 report that started all of this was legally sound in the first place.