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EFF leader Julius Malema addressing party supporters outside the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema says that he is confident that the party will win the Phala Phala farm theft case against President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg.
The EFF is challenging Parliament’s decision to forego an impeachment investigation into President Ramaphosa.
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.”
VIDEO | Other matters that Malema raised during his address outside ConCourt include the role of the party in SA politics:
‘Situation of mootness’
Meanwhile, in court, Advocate Andrew Breitenbach for the National Assembly and the Speaker argued that the legal challenge launched by the EFF is moot due to the time that has elapsed since the Section 89 report on Phala Phala was not adopted by the National Assembly.
In 2022, the national legislature voted not to adopt the independent panel report led by retired Chief Justice, Sandile Ngcbobo that found that there is a prima facie case for which President Cyril Ramaphosa must answer for the events that took place on his Phala Phala farm.
Breitanbach explained what he sees as the difficulty with the challenge by the red berets.
“Our basic problem with the lateness is that the 6th Parliament came to an end, with it all the business of the 6th Parliament, the composition of the 7th Parliament elected on the 29th of May is wholly different to the 6th Parliament and there can therefore be no resuscitation of this motion without doing violence to that very fundamental part of our democracy. Every five years we have an election, and a new National Assembly is elected. It’s very differently constituted, so we are in a situation of impossibility, mootness.”
Supporters also weighed in on the matter:
[Photo Album]
The EFF Picket outside the Constitutional Court.#PhalaPhalaConCourt pic.twitter.com/jZ6ZYkpSmJ
— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) November 26, 2024
‘Matter fundamentally flawed’
Legal counsel for President Cyril Ramaphosa argued that the National Assembly was correct not to adopt the Section 89 independent panel report in the Phala Phala matter as it was fundamentally flawed.
Advocate Geoff Budlender argued that Ramaphosa did not have the intention of breaking the law.
“But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that this interpretation is the correct one, that doesn’t answer the question of whether the President deliberately and in bad faith adopted the wrong interpretation of the term ‘paid work’. 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.”
