A South African court has upheld President Cyril Ramaphosa’s request to temporarily halt a parliamentary inquiry into whether he should be impeached over what has been dubbed the “Farmgate” scandal.
In 2022, an independent panel said Ramaphosa may have a case to answer after burglars stole huge sums of cash, hidden in a sofa, from his private farm. The president has denied any wrongdoing.
At the time, MPs voted against opening an impeachment inquiry, but in May the Constitutional Court ruled that Parliament had acted illegally in shelving the commission’s report.
Ramaphosa is now challenging the committee’s findings in a separate court case which will be heard in September.
The ruling by the Constitutional Court in May paved the way for Parliament to restart the impeachment process.
The composition of Parliament has changed dramatically over the past four years, with Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party no longer holding a majority and governing in a coalition after the 2024 elections.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling prompted the president to file a lawsuit, saying the committee had “misconceived its mandate, misassessed the information submitted to it, and misinterpreted the four accusations against me.”
On Friday, Western Cape High Court judge Andre le Grange suspended the parliamentary committee from continuing its hearings “pending the decision of this court on the applicant’s consideration” – a reference to Ramaphosa’s case against the committee.
The move buys Ramaphosa time – time during which the president hopes he can clear his name.
In court, his legal team argued that failing to halt the impeachment committee’s work until his other case was decided could cause irreparable harm to his reputation.
Three judges heard the case: two ruled in his favor. The majority ruling means that until his other case is heard and finalized, impeachment proceedings cannot continue.
This whole saga dates back to 2020 when a robbery took place at the president’s private farm in Phala Phala, Limpopo province.
Thieves broke in and stole cash – allegedly $580,000 (£430,000) in US dollar notes – which had been stuffed into a sofa.
Details of the theft were not revealed until two years later, when the country’s former intelligence chief, Arthur Fraser, highlighted the theft in an explosive dossier he sent to police.
Fraser, a close ally of Ramaphosa’s predecessor Jacob Zuma, accused the head of state of hiding the theft from the police and tax authorities.
As the stolen money was in foreign currencies, this meant that exchange control laws could also have been broken.
Ramaphosa said the money came from the sale of buffalo.
The president issued a statement shortly after Friday’s ruling, saying he took note and “respected” the court’s decision.
Additional reporting by Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg