Mkhwebane’s court appeal ‘bound to fail’

• Ramaphosa pours cold water on public protector’s bid to defend her invalidated report on funding for his CR17 campaign

President Cyril Ramaposa says public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s Constitutional Court bid to defend her invalidated report on his CR17 campaign funding has no prospects of success.

President Cyril Ramaphosa says public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s Constitutional Court bid to defend her invalidated report on his CR17 campaign funding has no prospects of success.

“It is not in the interests of justice to grant leave to appeal where the appeal is bound to fail,” the president said in court papers just lodged with the top court.

Mkhwebane went straight to the Constitutional Court after three high court judges in Pretoria rejected her report on Ramaphosa’s ANC party election campaign funding mainly on the basis that the report was legally and factually flawed.

They found that there was no basis for Mkhwebane to find that Ramaphosa lied deliberately to parliament about a R500,000 donation paid by late Bosasa CEO Gavin Watson into one of his CR17 campaign accounts.

Ramaphosa said initially that the payment was in relation to a consultancy agreement between African Global Operations (formerly Bosasa) and his son Andile after then DA leader Mmusi Maimane asked about a Bosasa payment to Andile.

The court also rubbished Mkhwebane’s finding that the CR17 campaign accounts may be implicated in money laundering, finding that she cited the wrong law to make this finding and had no factual basis on which to back it up.

This ruling may be crucial ammunition for Mkhwebane’s critics if and when she faces a parliamentary impeachment inquiry into her fitness to remain in office. That process has been set in motion and may resume soon in parliament. Mkhwebane has launched a separate court challenge to the rules that will govern that inquiry.

In the court papers, Ramaphosa also dismissed Mkhwebane’s argument that the high court showed “inconsistency” in its rulings on his court challenge to her CR17 report and former president Jacob Zuma’s efforts to overturn then public protector Thuli Madonsela’s state capture report.

The Pretoria high court rejected Mkhwebane’s argument in relation to this alleged “inconsistency”, finding that, unlike in the Zuma case, “there are no allegations of corruption levelled against [Ramaphosa] in state affairs in the complaints investigated by the public protector”.

While Mkhwebane has sought to revive this argument in the Constitutional Court, Ramaphosa said the public protector failed “to make out a proper case in this regard”.

LATE APPEAL

“There is no inconsistency between this case and the Zuma case. These cases dealt with different issues,” he said.

The president also slammed Mkhwebane for filing her appeal against the high court ruling nine days late. She attributed the delay to “some confusion caused by the Covid-19 lockdown”. He said that her explanation was “woefully inadequate”.

Mkhwebane said in court papers that she was advised that the lockdown had stalled all normal court processes and her appeal application would be due only “as and when the lockdown ends”.

Ramaphosa said this “purported explanation” did not cut it, and asked why “no attempts were made” to contact the registrar of the Constitutional Court “if the public protector and her legal team were unclear on how to lodge their application during the lockdown”.

The president said that Mkhwebane’s failure to file her appeal on time — as well as her failure to seek the court’s permission to file late — “calls for an explanation”.

“A full, detailed and accurate account of the causes of the delay and their effects must be furnished so as to enable the court to understand clearly the reasons,” he said.

THEY FOUND THAT THERE WAS NO BASIS FOR MKHWEBANE TO FIND THAT RAMAPHOSA LIED DELIBERATELY TO PARLIAMENT

MKHWEBANE SAID IN COURT PAPERS THAT SHE WAS ADVISED THAT THE LOCKDOWN HAD STALLED ALL NORMAL COURT PROCESSES