Speaker Didiza Backs Ramaphosa Bid to Halt 1 Impeachment Inquiry

Q: Can a lower court legally stop an impeachment process that was mandated by the nation's highest court?

Not ordinarily. In South Africa’s legal hierarchy, a High Court cannot simply override or suspend a binding order of the Constitutional Court, whose rulings are final and binding on all other courts. That is the core argument being made by Parliament’s impeachment committee and its legal advisers. They say the committee exists because the Constitutional Court ordered Parliament to revive the Section 89 process after finding the earlier halt unlawful. On that view, the process must continue unless the Constitutional Court’s order is set aside, varied, or a competent court grants relief that is legally consistent with that order. What Ramaphosa is testing in the Western Cape High Court is narrower: whether the court can grant an interim interdict stopping the committee’s work while he challenges the underlying Section 89 panel report. His lawyers argue the panel exceeded its mandate and relied on hearsay. Speaker Thoko Didiza’s decision not to oppose that application does not itself stop the process; only a court order could do that. So the practical answer is that a lower court may be asked to pause aspects of the process, but whether it can lawfully halt a process expressly revived by the Constitutional Court is exactly the unresolved jurisdictional issue now before the courts. Until a court orders otherwise, the impeachment committee’s position is that the Constitutional Court’s mandate remains in force and its work should continue.

1 articles · Updated · Bloomberg · Jun 21

Thoko Didiza said she will support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s effort to stop the parliamentary impeachment process now under way.
Parliament said on Sunday the speaker sees that position as necessary and consistent with the National Assembly’s role, distinct from that of the impeachment committee.
The move puts Didiza at odds with the panel of lawmakers already conducting the inquiry into South Africa’s head of state.
That split sharpens an institutional clash over who should control the next stage of a rare impeachment process against a sitting president.