Ramaphosa says Phala Phala panel denied him a vital legal shield

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s legal team says the central issue in his Phala Phala review is whether an independent panel failed at the job it was created to perform: shielding him from a public impeachment inquiry unless there was sufficient evidence to justify one.

The argument was the central faultline on the final day of the Western Cape High Court hearing into Ramaphosa’s bid to overturn the section 89 panel’s report, with the president’s lawyers saying the panel applied the wrong test and his opponents arguing that the court should not turn a preliminary screening process into a trial of the allegations.

Advocate Wim Trengove, for Ramaphosa, said the panel had wrongly equated “sufficient evidence” with “prima facie evidence”.

The distinction is critical, he argued. A prima facie test asks whether the evidence against a person, if accepted, establishes a case, while the panel was required to make a qualitative assessment of all the evidence before deciding whether there was enough to warrant an impeachment hearing.

“The essence of the prima facie evidence test is that you disregard the exculpatory evidence,” Trengove said.

He argued that the panel could not properly apply such a test after giving Ramaphosa an opportunity to respond to the allegations.

“It doesn’t make sense to say you must give the president an opportunity to have his side, to give his side of the story, and then convict him of a prima facie case against him.”

The president’s legal team also says the panel failed to properly determine whether Ramaphosa had acted intentionally and in bad faith, which Trengove argued was central to the rules’ definitions of serious misconduct and serious constitutional violations.

The respondents rejected this interpretation, saying the panel was never meant to determine whether Ramaphosa was guilty. Its role was to decide whether there was enough material to justify moving the matter to the next stage, where evidence could be tested more fully.

Advocate Dali Mpofu, for the MK Party, said the question before the panel was simply whether there was a case to answer.

“The charges are the starting point,” Mpofu said.

He argued that the stolen foreign currency could not be artificially separated from the charges because it formed part of the factual foundation of the allegations concerning Ramaphosa’s conduct, the alleged instruction to Maj-Gen Wally Rhoode, and the reporting of the theft.

Mpofu also warned against allowing litigation to derail the constitutional accountability process, describing the president’s review as part of a pattern of “delay, delay, delay”.

He argued that the Constitutional Court’s May 2026 order directing the report to the impeachment committee was binding and that setting aside the report would effectively undo that referral.

Trengove rejected this, saying the Constitutional Court had amended the parliamentary rules and given effect to the new process but had not ruled on whether the panel itself had acted lawfully.

The Constitutional Court had expressly left open the possibility of the report being set aside on review, he argued.

The sharpest disagreement concerned the purpose of the independent panel.

Trengove described it as a crucial “buffer” between allegations brought by political opponents and the “punitive and humiliating” process of a public impeachment inquiry.

If the panel applied the wrong test, he argued, Ramaphosa was deprived of a protection deliberately built into parliament’s rules.

Waiting until after an impeachment inquiry to challenge the report would defeat that purpose, he said, because the reputational damage and public humiliation would already have occurred.

“If the president … should wait until after he’s been impeached and then take the report on review, that’s an absurdity,” Trengove said.

The UAT, represented by advocate Thabani Masuku SC, accepted that the panel played an important independent role but argued that its function was to enable, rather than replace, parliament’s accountability process.

“The president is not an ordinary citizen in an ordinary investigation,” Masuku said.

He argued that the court’s task was to police legality, not decide the merits of the impeachment allegations on an untested written record.

“The constitution is to police legality. It is not to decide in parliament’s place, on an untested written record, whether the president is innocent of the allegations.”

Masuku said the impeachment committee was the appropriate forum for testing disputed evidence through mechanisms such as cross-examination and subpoenas.

“Accountability is not a presumption of guilt. It is the means by which guilt or innocence is properly determined,” he said.

He argued that even if the panel had made an error, that should not necessarily bring the entire process to an end.

“There are a number of places [where] a defect can be found … [that] should not torpedo the entire accountability, the entire constitutional impeachment process.”

Trengove maintained that this approach misunderstood the purpose of the independent panel.

He also argued that the panel could not rely on allegations outside the four charges against Ramaphosa.

The principle of audi alteram partem — the right to be heard — required the president to know what allegations he was required to answer, he said.

“If there are four charges, then the president is required to respond to those four charges.”

On the first charge, concerning Ramaphosa’s farming interests and the prohibition on members of the executive undertaking other paid work, Trengove said ownership and involvement in a family farm did not amount to paid work.

He rejected attempts to connect the foreign currency found at the farm to remuneration for work.

On the second charge, concerning the failure to report the theft under section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, Trengove said Ramaphosa had reported the burglary to Rhoode and expected him to process it according to police procedures.

There was no evidence that Ramaphosa intended the investigation to be kept secret.

He similarly argued that there was no evidence linking Ramaphosa to the manner in which Rhoode subsequently investigated the burglary, including events in Namibia.

Mpofu and Masuku took a broader view of the evidence, arguing that the circumstances surrounding the money, the investigation and Ramaphosa’s conduct were relevant to determining whether there was enough evidence to proceed.

The court also grappled with whether the report was reviewable before the parliamentary process had run its course.

Mpofu argued that the court should intervene only in an exceptional case involving grave injustice. Masuku said the court should be careful not to transfer parliament’s constitutional accountability function to the judiciary.

Trengove countered that the report had direct legal consequences because it triggered the impeachment process and required parliament and the president to take further steps.

The three-judge bench — judge president Nolwazi Mabindla-Boqwana, judge Mark Sher and judge Ncumisa Mayosi — reserved judgment.

The court said it was conscious of the importance of the case and the expectation of parliament and the public for an outcome, but needed time to consider the competing arguments.

Business Day

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