South African president mounts legal challenge against report that could lead to impeachment

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has started a legal challenge against a report commissioned by parliament that has paved the way for MPs to consider impeachment proceedings against him once again.

In 2022, an independent panel said Ramaphosa might have committed serious misconduct relating to the theft of large sums of cash hidden in a sofa at his private farm. The president denied any wrongdoing.

Earlier this month a Constitutional Court ruling said parliament had acted unconstitutionally when four years ago it voted against establishing an impeachment inquiry following the report.

At that time Ramaphosa’s African National Congress (ANC) party had a parliamentary majority.

But since the general election in 2024, it has governed as part of a coalition after losing its majority.

In Ramaphosa’s legal challenge filed on Tuesday at the High Court in Cape Town, the president said the panel had “misconceived its mandate, misjudged the information placed before it and misinterpreted the four charges advanced against me”.

The charges included violating the constitution and serious misconduct.

“I do not make this application lightly,” the president says in the court submission, arguing that the report should be set aside, thereby annulling the impeachment process.

The Speaker of parliament has already formed the impeachment committee, made-up of 31 MPs from 16 political parties, including nine from the ANC, the leading member of the governing coalition.

The committee will decide whether there are grounds to start impeachment proceedings.

This saga – dubbed “Farmgate” by local media – began in 2020, after $580,000 (£430,000) had allegedly been stolen from Phala Phala, Ramaphosa’s farm in the northern Limpopo province.

Two years later, the independent panel found evidence that the president may have violated his oath of office and concluded that he had “a case to answer”.

South Africa has strict rules on holding foreign currency, which say that it must be deposited with an authorised dealer such as a bank within 30 days. At the time, Ramaphosa said the cash was from the legitimate sale of buffalo from his farming business.