Dear Editor,

The Constitutional Court has announced that at ten on Friday, its long awaited verdict will be pronounced in the spat between the EFF and parliament over the latter’s stance taken in its decision to kick the report to it by the Ngcobo Panel into the long grass.

That report examines the strange goings on at the president’s Phala Phala ranch when over US $ 500,000 in cash, the alleged purchase price of cattle, that were never delivered to their Sudanese buyer, were stitched into a couch and then stolen by brazen burglars more than a month later. Apparently, the president did not think the farm’s safe was safe enough for so much cash.

No one is betting on the outcome of the matter. It seems likely that the long delay in getting to judgment will be explained by the multiplicity of judgments that will be handed down by the tardy justices. The political fortunes of the EFF, currently waning in the polls, will likely be affected by the outcome win, lose or draw. The “draw” is a possible result in which the majority of the court refuses to deal with the case on its merits by declining to exercise jurisdiction on some or other esoteric basis in law.

Whatever the outcome, a political shake up is likely to follow. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the political career of the president is at stake , if not in the outcome of the litigation, then in the processes that follow it.

Yours in accountability
Paul Hoffman SC