By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has objected to the nomination of Advocate Griffiths Madonsela, SC as the evidence leader of the Section 89 Impeachment Committee.
The objection has forced the Section 89 Impeachment Committee to halt proceedings and seek urgent independent legal opinion.
Ramaphosa, in a letter to the impeachment committee, said “there is a reasonable apprehension that Madonsela SC may harbour a sense of grievance towards him and that he may act upon it” because he had removed the advocate on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) in March 2022.
He has also claimed conflict of interest – that Madonsela had provided legal advice to the African National Congress (ANC) on impeachment processes – has been on public record for about two weeks. It was formally disclosed to MPs that Madonsela supervised a junior in a legal opinion, but that his brief ended early in July.
ANC MPs abstained from the vote on evidence leader so as not to be accused of double standards at the 5th of August impeachment committee meeting.
The so-called progressive caucus, including the MK party, the EFF and the African Transformation Movement (ATM), proposed proceeding after dismissing Ramaphosa’s objection as “second-guessing” the impeachment committee’s democratic processes to delay it.
In contrast, group coalescing around the Government of National Unity (GNU), including ActionSA and the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), raised concerns about getting all the legal ducks in a row to avoid future reviews.
The committee voted 19-5 to postpone the appointment of the evidence leader and to seek legal review of Ramaphosa’s letter.
Wednesday’s vote on what to do about the presidential objections overwhelmingly went in favour of getting legal advice on options, allowing the impeachment committee chairperson, Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana, the relief that his proposed compromise was accepted.
“We need to take a step back from the politics of the matter and look at the legalities of the matter,” he told MPs before the vote. “It was to be expected every step of the way would be challenged.”
No date was set for the legal opinion on options concerning the President’s objection to the evidence leader over the claimed conflict of interest.
However, the impeachment committee meets again on the eve of the court hearings from 2 September on Ramaphosa’s review of the Section 89 independent panel report, which found he had a case to answer over the forex theft from sofa cushions at his private Phala Phala game farm.
Ramaphosa is seeking to overturn the Sec 89 panel’s findings regarding the theft of approximately $580 000 (about R9.6 million) from Phala Phala in February 2020.
Meanwhile in his response, contained in a letter to Parliament on Wednesday, Madonsela said every fact the president raised was disclosed by him to parliament’s senior parliamentary legal adviser on July 27.
He added that that Ramaphosa’s apprehension is not grounded on fact and that his role as Evidence Leader would not be adjudicative.
Madonsela is a prominent senior counsel and former member of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). His areas of practice have included commercial, administrative and constitutional law, commissions of inquiry, civil litigation, insurance, labour law, land restitution and criminal law.