MK Party’s urgent application over Batohi pension challenged in court

uMkhonto weSizwe (MKP) Legal Representative Adv Kameel Premhid speaks at the High Court in Pretoria on March 25, 2026.

The Pretoria High Court has heard that the uMkhonto weSizwe (MKP) urgent application regarding the pension payout of former National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) Advocate Shamila Batohi does not meet the requirements for urgency. This is according to Adv Nyoko Muvangua, who is representing the first respondent in the matter, President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The MKP has approached the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday in an urgent bid to stop Batohi’s pension payout.

Advocate Muvangua has argued that the MKP has not sufficiently advanced its argument for urgency.

“It seems to me that when urgency is an issue, the underlined piece is the following. The primary investigation should be to determine whether the applicant will be afforded substantial redress at a hearing in due course. If the applicant cannot establish prejudice in this sense, the application cannot be urgent.”

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MKP Legal Representative Adv Kameel Premhid argues that if Batohi’s pension is paid out to her then it will constitute a “rule of law harm”.

The urgent bid comes amid allegations of misconduct, dereliction of duty and possible perjury levelled against her tenure as NDPP.

Premhid has told Judge Nicoline Janse van Nieuwenhuizen that the party wants to stop the payment that government has contributed towards Batohi’s pension.

Janse van Nieuwenhuizen asked, “Do I understand you correctly that you only want to stop the payment that the government contribute? So she may get her own contribution? She must not get what the government contributed?”

Premhid responded, “Yes, my lady, that would most sensibly be the case.”

Janse van Nieuwenhuizen added, “I can understand in the papers that the case is perhaps presented a bit more broadly than that, and it’s talking about the pension in aggregate rather than the different segmentation of the pension.”