President Cyril Ramaphosa’s high-stakes bid to overturn the damning Section 89 panel report on the Phala Phala saga now has a court date, and South Africa’s political class is scrambling to position itself before the gavel falls. The Western Cape High Court will hear the President’s review application from 2 to 4 September, with his legal team — led by Advocate Dali Mpofu — preparing to argue that the independent panel overstepped its mandate.
The case is shaping up as one of the most consequential constitutional showdowns of Ramaphosa’s presidency, pitting his claim to executive protection against Parliament’s revived attempt to hold him accountable for the 2020 theft of foreign currency at his Limpopo game farm. A date in early September means the impeachment clock keeps ticking, and the ruling will land just months before the ANC’s elective conference.
Phala Phala review bid: who stands where
The Constitutional Court ruled in May 2026 that the National Assembly’s December 2022 decision to bury the Section 89 report was unlawful, ordering Parliament to reopen the process. That ruling triggered a frantic reshuffle inside the legislature, where parties are now jostling over the composition and scope of a new impeachment committee.
| Party | Position on Phala Phala review bid | Position on impeachment committee |
|---|---|---|
| ANC | Backs Ramaphosa’s right to challenge the report in court | Proposes joint committee with DA; accused of dragging feet |
| DA | Publicly supports court route as legitimate | Co-proposes committee; EFF calls it a coalition shield |
| EFF | Rejects the review as a “waste of time” | Wants a fully empowered committee, not a “stock standard” list |
| ActionSA | Wants the ConCourt ruling respected, not litigated | Demands transparent selection of committee members |
The takeaway: a rare court date has not unified the opposition — it has exposed fresh fault lines. The EFF is attacking the very committee it once demanded, while the DA courts procedural legitimacy the EFF calls theatre.
Mpofu, speaking on radio this week, broke down the legal scaffolding behind the President’s challenge. He argued that the Section 89 panel — chaired by Justice Sandile Ngcobo — was constitutionally limited to a “preliminary inquiry”, and that Parliament’s own rules cap impeachable conduct to “improper behaviour” by the President. Anything beyond that, he contends, is the work of the Hawks and the NPA, not a parliamentary committee.
That distinction is at the heart of the case. If the court agrees, the panel’s finding that Ramaphosa may have committed “serious misconduct” gets stripped of its impeachable weight. If it disagrees, the report stays on the table and the National Assembly moves inexorably toward a vote that could end his presidency.
Inside Parliament, the mood is febrile. The ANC and the DA this week tabled a joint proposal to constitute the impeachment committee, with the EFF immediately labelling the move “political manoeuvring”. The red berets argue that the proposed line-up is a “stock standard list” of familiar faces, designed to slow-walk the process rather than test the evidence.
EFF leader Julius Malema has been characteristically blunt, accusing the ANC of “deliberately delaying” the Section 89 process and warning that any attempt to “review the findings” of the ConCourt ruling itself is doomed. He has told reporters in Johannesburg that Parliament must act without delay and that Ramaphosa must “use his conscience”.
The DA, by contrast, has been more measured. The party accepts the court route as a constitutional right and is content to let the judiciary arbitrate. But its willingness to co-author a committee proposal with the ANC has infuriated smaller opposition benches, who see it as a coalition survival pact dressed up as oversight.
Then there is the parliamentary rules question. Watchers have raised fears that the National Assembly could deploy its own rulebook to narrow the scope of any inquiry — limiting the committee to a procedural rerun of the 2022 report rather than a fresh investigation. Constitutional law expert Lufuno Nevondwe has noted that the President retains the right to take the report on review, but that right does not automatically suspend Parliament’s oversight powers.
For ordinary South Africans, the technicalities are dense but the stakes are simple: a sitting President, foreign cash hidden in a sofa, a panel finding he may have lied to Parliament, and now a courtroom duel that could redefine the line between executive privacy and public accountability. The Phala Phala review bid is no longer just a legal filing — it is the central drama of the 2026 political calendar.
Ramaphosa himself has publicly stated he will not resign and that he is ready to defend the application. His allies argue that a fair hearing is the very foundation of the rule of law; his critics counter that a President who hides millions in a farm bedroom cannot credibly lecture the country on ethics.
What happens in that Cape Town courtroom in September will likely determine whether the impeachment committee ever gets to do its real work — or whether the entire process is shunted sideways into years of appeals. Either way, the Phala Phala cloud over the Union Buildings shows no sign of lifting, and South Africans are watching a constitutional drama with no script and no safe predictions.