Presidency welcomes court ruling against Mkhwebane
THE Presidency has welcomed the North Gauteng High Court’s finding over the R500 000 donation to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign, saying it reaffirmed the president’s argument that there was no factual basis for Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s findings in the matter.
In a scathing judgment delivered by a full Bench of the high court, Judge-President Dunstan Mlambo and Judges Keoagile Matojane and Raylene Keightley found that Mkhwebane’s report was fundamentally flawed, and declared it invalid and set it aside.
“There are some fundamental difficulties with the public protector’s findings that the president misled Parliament. To begin with, it is apparent from the report that the public protector was confused about the legal foundation of her findings,” the judgment said.
According to Judge Matojane, the Executive Ethics Code states that members of the executive may not wilfully mislead the legislature, “but for some inexplicable reason, Mkhwebane reframed the section and included ‘deliberately and inadvertently mislead the legislature’.
“Her purported excerpt from the quote is even more fundamentally problematic than this. The public protector replaces wilfully with deliberately or inadvertently. These errors and confusion are repeated throughout the report,” said Judge Matojane.
He said Ramaphosa was correct in his assertion that Mkhwebane’s confusion permeated her entire consideration of the issue.
“Her confusion is borne out by her ultimate conclusion, which is difficult to understand,” the judge said.
Mkhwebane was ordered to pay the legal costs of Speaker Thandi Modise
and National Director of Public Prosecutions Shamila Batohi, against whom she also issued remedial action, and who both wanted the report reviewed and set aside.
Mkhwebane’s spokesperson, Oupa Segalwe, said a decision on whether she would appeal would be made after studying the judgment.
Modise has also welcomed the Gauteng High Court’s decision.
“In setting aside the public protector’s remedial actions and monitoring mechanism, the court found that they were inappropriate, ineffective, encroached on Parliament’s constitutional functions and responsibilities and were contrary to the doctrine of separation of powers,” Modise said.
The EFF, meanwhile, said the ruling was “bizarre”.
The party said it would take the legal fight to the Constitutional Court.
“We reject the logic that Ramaphosa did not personally benefit from the CR17 campaign funds.
“We also reject the conclusion that he therefore did not have to declare the funds of the CR17 campaign to Parliament,” the
EFF said.
Political analyst, Professor Sipho Seepe, said: “Nothing (is) surprising about the Court outcome regarding CR funding. I would have been shocked if the court had ruled in favour of the PP. The line of questioning was clear-cut.”