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File Image: Constitutional Court in session.
The Constitutional Court has reserved judgment in the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and African Transformation Movement (ATM) Phala Phala challenge.
The Court heard arguments on the National Assembly’s decision not to adopt the Independent Panel’s Report on the Phala Phala scandal.
The legal counsel for President Cyril Ramaphosa argued that the National Assembly’s decision not to adopt the Section 89 independent panel report was correct as it was fundamentally flawed.
Advocate Geoff Budlender argued that his client did not intend to break the law.
“But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that its interpretation is the correct one, that doesn’t answer the question whether the President deliberately and in bad faith adopted the wrong interpretation of the term ‘paid work’,” added Budlender.
“The President’s farming activities have never been a secret. He’s published a book of photographs of the particular breed of cattle in which he has a particular interest. It seems very unlikely that he deliberately and in bad faith ignored the law and then published his activities.”
“Perhaps more likely is that he genuinely thought that he was entitled to act as he did and he lacked dolus and bad faith. Again, the question is not whether the president’s interpretation was right or wrong, it is whether his interpretation was in bad faith,” he explained.
Meanwhile, EFF leader Julius Malema is confident that the party will win the Phala Phala farm theft case.
Malema told scores of supporters outside the apex court that it must take a legitimate decision on the Phala Phala matter.
“There is no decision that Parliament must take if it is not constitutional. As long as it is not constitutional, this Constitutional Court has got jurisdiction to decide on this matter. It is not political interference; it is the Constitutional Court making sure that Parliament complies with the requirement of the Constitution,” added Malema.
