By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane is seeking to urgently challenge President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to suspend her, pending a parliamentary inquiry into her fitness to hold office in the Western Cape High Court.
Mkhwebane wants the court to declare her suspension unconstitutional.
She argues that Ramaphosa is conflicted and may have suspended her in retaliation for, among other things, her investigating him over the 2020 break-in at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo.
Ramaphosa denied any wrongdoing and had agreed to provide the High Court with a copy of his response to the 31 questions put to him over the break-in (and its alleged cover-up) by the Public Protector’s Office as soon as he had filed them.
It then emerged that, in an email sent to Ramaphosa’s private attorneys on 4 July, the Public Protector’s Office had asked the president’s lawyers to “[p]lease ensure that when the response from the Presidency is ready, [it’s] emailed only to us and copied here and nobody else”.
“We want to take precautions to avoid any leakage of such documents to the media, thereby compromising and jeopardising the investigation.”
Section 7(2) is of the Public Protector Act 23 of 1994 provides that, ‘Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any law no person shall disclose to any other person the contents of any document in the possession of a member of the office of the Public Protector or the record of any evidence given before the Public Protector, a Deputy Public Protector or a person contemplated in subsection (3)(b) during an investigation, unless the Public Protector determines otherwise’.”
It also emerged during court proceedings that “in light of this request from the Office of the Public Protector, the President has not made his response to the investigation available to Court. While the President has no objection to doing so (particularly in view of what was stated in his supplementary answering affidavit), he has no intention of ‘compromising and jeopardising the investigation’, which, according to the Office of the Public Protector, will occur if the response is made public.”
The president would “abide the decision of this Court as to whether his response to the Phala Phala investigation must be filed before Court”.
In response, Mkhwebane has accused Ramaphosa of “refusing” to provide his Phala Phala answers to the court and has demanded that he be ordered to hand them over.
Mkhwebane is also challenging the constitutionality of the letter which the Speaker wrote to the President advising him about the start of the parliamentary proceedings into her fitness to hold office.
The case continues on Tuesday.
Livestream Video Below:
Video Courtesy of ENCA.