<\/p>\n
On Friday, the court ruled that the National Assembly had acted unlawfully in 2022 when it voted to reject a report by an independent panel.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The report had recommended an impeachment inquiry into President Cyril Ramaphosa regarding a theft at his Phala Phala farm in Bela\u2011Bela, Limpopo, in February 2020. Nel says the ruling shows that the Constitution is a robust legal document.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere we have a president in respect of whom the highest court makes pronouncements about a parliamentary process. In how many countries would the president have gone off and attacked the judges, insinuated bias and told them that they were talking nonsense? What does our president do? The first thing he does is to say, \u2018I respect the judgment. I will abide by that judgment.\u2019 Maybe it\u2019s because it happens so often that we take it for granted. But that is not the norm in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Civil society organisation Corruption Watch has hailed the Constitutional Court judgment on the Phala Phala matter, saying it came at a significant time in the country\u2019s constitutional democracy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they ignored that report, that the President indeed, there is prima facie evidence that he has a case to answer, we saw that there are no rules and regulations, but that, depending on who you are, they can be applied selectively,\u201d Corruption Watch’s Executive Director Lebogang Ramafoko said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very important, as stated within even our 2030 strategy, that in this country, we have a lack of transparency and accountability. It was symbolic that this judgment was given on the 30th anniversary of the Constitution,\u201d Ramafoko added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–SABC\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34129,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-34127","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"South Africa's (SA) Deputy Justice Minister Andries Nel says the Constitutional Court ruling on the Phala Phala matter demonstrates the effectiveness of the country's Constitution in reinforcing accountability.","published_date":"","news_description":"South Africa's (SA) Deputy Justice Minister Andries Nel says the Constitutional Court ruling on the Phala Phala matter demonstrates the effectiveness of the country's Constitution in reinforcing accountability.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34127","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":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34131,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/34127\/revisions\/34131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=34127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}