{"id":34025,"date":"2026-05-08T12:15:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&p=34025"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:15:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T10:15:23","slug":"sas-top-court-revives-impeachment-process-against-president","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sas-top-court-revives-impeachment-process-against-president\/","title":{"rendered":"SA’s top court revives impeachment process against President"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South Africa’s (SA) constitutional court revived on Friday \u200cimpeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa over a scandal dubbed “Farmgate” by local media, saying parliament had acted unlawfully by blocking the process in 2022.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The scandal centred \u200bon allegations made by a former intelligence official that Ramaphosa tried \u200bto cover up the theft of about $4 million in \u2060foreign currency stashed in furniture at his Phala Phala game farm \u200bin 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ramaphosa, a wealthy businessman before he became President in 2018, admitted \u200bthere had been a break-in but said the thieves only stole $580 000, which he said were proceeds from the sale of buffaloes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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He denied wrongdoing and was never charged \u200bwith a crime, but an independent panel found evidence he may \u200bhave committed misconduct.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In its ruling on Friday, the constitutional court said a December 2022 \u200cvote \u2060in parliament that blocked the panel’s report from being referred to an impeachment committee was inconsistent with the constitution and set aside.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It ordered that the report should be referred to an impeachment committee.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The legal challenge \u200bwas brought to \u200bthe country’s highest \u2060court in 2024 by the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, who were later joined by a smaller opposition \u200bparty in the case.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party lost \u200bits parliamentary \u2060majority in an election in 2024 and now governs as part of a broad coalition with other parties.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After the court’s ruling, the ANC’s main \u2060coalition \u200bpartner, the Democratic Alliance, said in a \u200bstatement that it would participate fully in the impeachment committee and not prejudge its outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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–Reuters–<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15178,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34025","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":"SA court revives impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34026,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34025\/revisions\/34026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}