EFF bid to unseal CR17 records dismissed

The EFF’s court bid to unseal bank statements associated with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 ANC presidential campaign has been dismissed with costs by the high court in Pretoria.

The opposition party sought to make the funders of Ramaphosa’s successful presidential campaign public, arguing that the “unsealing” of the documents was in the public interest.

The EFF argued that nondisclosure of the campaign’s funders would lead to a danger of secrecy in which politicians would use their positions in public office to further the agenda of benefactors.

Judge Cassim Sardiwalla, however, said that there was no compelling reason for the records to be disclosed to the public.

“[The EFF] has not advanced any public or private good that will be served by public disclosure as against the personal or private good that will be served by public disclosure as against the personal danger in which parties of the CR17 campaign concerned and their activities will be placed,” Sardiwalla said.

The ruling comes four months after Ramaphosa signed into law the Political Party Funding Act, which requires political parties to disclose funding above R100,000 to the Electoral Commission.

The high court’s ruling is a resounding victory for Ramaphosa, who has maintained that he did nothing wrong and did not directly control the donations made to his presidential campaign. The ruling handed down on Tuesday also follows the Constitutional Court ruling earlier in July that set aside public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s application to overturn an earlier high court ruling that dismissed her report on the CR17 funding.

The top court found that Mkhwebane exceeded her powers because she did not have the authority to investigate the campaign as it did not form part of the complaint she was required to investigate.

The Constitutional Court found that Ramaphosa was not obliged under the executive code of ethics to disclose the funding for his campaign.

The campaign’s bank statements were sealed by deputy judge president Aubrey Ledwaba in 2019 at the request of the president’s lawyers on condition that if anyone wished to challenge the sealing, they should do so in court.

THE PARTY’S BID TO FORCE THE DISCLOSURE OF RAMAPHOSA’S CR17 BANK STATEMENTS HAS BEEN DISMISSED WITH COSTS