DA takes legal route to fight Zuma decision
• Party wants high court to review cabinet reshuffle
The DA has brought an urgent application before the High Court in Pretoria asking that the dismissal of former finance minister Pravin Gordhan and former deputy finance minister Mcebisi Jonas and their replacements by Malusi Gigaba and Sfiso Buthelezi respectively be reviewed and set aside on the grounds that it was irrational, unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.
The court action comes amid a groundswell of protest against the dismissals. The respondents for the application are President Jacob Zuma, Gordhan, Jonas, Gigaba and Buthelezi.
The party has asked the court to oblige Zuma to submit all documents related to his dismissal decisions and his reasons for them as well as to disclose whether he relied on the “intelligence report” in making them and from where the report emanated.
In his founding affidavit, DA federal executive chairman James Selfe argued that it was a well-established principle of law that the exercise of every public power was subject to the principle of legality.
This means that the Constitution required that the exercise of every public power must be rational, exercised for a legitimate public purpose and be exercised on the correct facts. This included decisions made by the president.
Selfe said Zuma’s decision to dismiss Gordhan and Jonas did not comply with these requirements. This was further confirmed by the fact that he had retained in his Cabinet the worst performing and most incompetent ministers, namely Social
Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini and Public Service and Administration Minister Faith Muthambi, who was promoted from her former position as minister of communications. Retaining these ministers belied Zuma’s statement that the intention of the cabinet reshuffle was to improve the “efficiency and effectiveness” of the Cabinet.
“The decisions to dismiss Gordhan and Jonas are rendered all the more inexplicable and irrational by the decisions in respect of Minister Dlamini and Minister Muthambi,” Selfe said.
He noted that Zuma had given no public explanation for his dismissal decisions, though he had informed the leadership of the ANC that he had acted on the basis of an “intelligence report” that Gordhan and Jonas were acting against the interests of the country.
Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and other senior leaders of the ANC and of the South African Communist Party had rubbished this report and to the extent that Zuma relied on it, his decision was “plainly irrational”. If he did not rely on the report, his decisions “are simply inexplicable” and therefore irrational, Selfe said.
He argued that the dismissals of Gordhan and Jonas were “extraordinarily serious” and far-reaching and were already having calamitous consequences for the country.
“To simultaneously replace the minister of finance and deputy minister of finance is always a drastic step.
“To do so now in the face of the economic challenges facing SA and its attempts to maintain economic credibility and investment grade credit ratings is all the more so.”
The decision by creditratings agency S&P Global Ratings to downgrade SA’s longterm foreign-currency debt rating to junk status was taken because of the risk the cabinet reshuffle posed to government’s fiscal and growth outcomes.
There was a possibility that Moody’s and/or Fitch could also decide on a downgrade.
Selfe said that these calamitous consequences were “entirely foreseeable” by Zuma because of what happened when he dismissed former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene in December 2015.