Dear Editor,

With the impeachment committee of the National Assembly safely in place with a chairman and, soon, a set of rules, it looks from a parliamentary perspective as though it is all systems go for the committee to do its work in regard to the strange goings on at Phala Phala back in 2020.

However, the president has his judicial review of the report of the Ngcobo Panel enrolled for hearing in the High Court from 2 to 4 September. At this stage there is no temporary interdict application in place. As is usual, the president is playing the long game and will presumably only seek to interdict the workings of the impeachment committee if and when he has to do so.

It seems likely that the review will be heard by a panel of three judges in the High Court. The pundits are taking odds on a 2/1 split on the bench, but the direction the majority takes is a matter that is too close to call. Whoever loses in the High Court is highly likely to seek and receive leave to appeal, probably to the SCA but conceivably to the Concourt, depending on the urgency with which the latter court approaches the matter, having kept litigants waiting for more than 500 days in the previous round of the litigation which ended in that three part judgment on 8 May 2026. If the matter goes to the SCA a year of delay is probable, and if it goes on to the Concourt a further year of delay is about the minimum the litigants can expect. The High Court will most likely deliver judgment in the review by the end of October 2026, and the further two years appeals will take will bring the litigation to finality toward the end of 2028. By then the ANC will have held its late 2027 elective conference and will most likely be under the leadership of a new leader. Both Thabo Mbeki in September 2008 and Jacob Zuma in February 2018, were swiftly deposed long before their second five year term of office as national president had expired. Cyril Ramaphosa can expect a similar fate, if he is still in office after the elective conference is held at the end of 2027.

Should Ramaphosa lose the early rounds of the litigation, it is a certainty that he will try his luck on appeal. Whether appeals will follow if he wins the early rounds is a different matter. The abandonment of the impeachment proceedings after a reversal in court will free up the opponents of the president to renew their requests for a vote of no confidence in the president. The excuse for refusing the previous no confidence motion request (the pending impeachment) will have fallen away due to the success of the president in the review proceedings.

It is by no means certain that the president will weather a no confidence vote in which only 50% plus one need vote against him to see both him and his cabinet out of office. Persisting with the impeachment case, in which a two thirds majority vote is required, is a fool’s errand while the ANC caucus in the National Assembly remains loyal to the president and votes (all 40% of them) against any possible impeachment motion after the pain and delay of the committee hearings that must precede it.

Yours in accountability,

Paul Hoffman SC