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Jacob Zuma not held to account over home upgrade scandal, court rules South Africa court ruling paves way for Jacob Zuma to be impeached
(about 3 hours later)
South Africa’s top court has ruled that parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account in a scandal over multimillion-dollar upgrades to his private home, in a decision likely to escalate pressure on him to resign. South Africa’s highest court has ruled that the parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account in a scandal over state-funded upgrades to his country residence, fuelling opposition calls for him to be impeached.
The constitutional court’s ruling followed its conclusion last year that Zuma violated the constitution when he benefited inappropriately from state funding for improvements to his Nkandla home. It was one of a series of presidential scandals that have tarnished the reputation of the ruling African National Congress, the main anti-apartheid movement that has led South Africa since the first all-race elections in 1994. The constitutional court ordered the national assembly to make rules that allow the president to be impeached, adding to Zuma’s difficulties after he was replaced last week by Cyril Ramaphosa as leader of the ruling African National Congress.
Zuma has survived opposition efforts to oust him in votes of no confidence in parliament, where the ANC party has a majority. Frustrated by setbacks in the national assembly, the leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters and other small opposition parties went to court as part of their campaign to impeach Zuma, who has lost support among ruling party loyalists. Frustrated by setbacks in the national assembly, the leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters and other small opposition parties went to court as part of their campaign to impeach Zuma, who has lost support among ANC loyalists.
Zuma was replaced as party leader this month by the deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, a critic of the corruption that has undermined South Africa’s economy. Last year, the court found that Zuma had violated the constitution when he refused to pay back public money spent on multimillion-pound upgrades to his rural home at Nkandla, in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.
“We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account,” said Chris Jafta, a constitutional court judge who read out the ruling. He called for parliament to institute rules that would provide for a president’s removal. Improvements to the homestead cost £11m and included a swimming pool, which the former police minister Nkosinathi Nhleko claimed was a “fire pool” for extinguishing fires; an amphitheatre, which Nhleko said could serve as an emergency assembly point, as well as a chicken run and cattle enclosure.
The court ruling cited a constitutional provision that says parliament may remove a president from office by a two-thirds majority for a “serious violation” of the law, as well as a separate requirement that constitutional obligations must be “performed diligently and without delay”. The court cited section 89 of South Africa’s constitution, which allows for the president to be removed for serious misconduct, or violation of the constitution or law, if two thirds of the members of the national assembly are in agreement.
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng disagreed with the majority ruling, describing it as judicial overreach. “We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account … The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office,” judge Chris Jafta said, handing down the judgment, which was supported by a majority of the court.
The ruling party said it would study the ruling and discuss it at a high-level meeting on 10 January. “Properly interpreted, section 89 implicitly imposes an obligation on the assembly to make rules specially tailored for the removal of the president from office. By omitting to include such rules, the assembly has failed to fulfil this obligation.”
Despite a damning 2014 report into the upgrades by the then public protector, Thuli Madonsela, Zuma managed to avoid paying anything until 2016, when he refunded 7.8m of the 100m rand spent on Nkandla.
Opposition parties blamed Baleka Mbete, the speaker of the national assembly, for parliament’s failures on Nkandla. Mbete was accused of personally trying to protect Zuma over the upgrades after she said: “In the African tradition, you don’t interfere with a man’s kraal (cattle enclosure).”
The court’s chief justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, disagreed with his colleagues over the ruling, but it was not enough to change it.
After Mogoeng passed him a note, Jafta said: “The chief justice characterises the majority judgement as a textbook case of judicial overreach, a constitutionally impermissible intrusion by the judiciary into the exclusive domain of parliament.”
The ruling will probably trigger an investigation into the grounds for impeaching Zuma, who has faced many calls for his resignation in the past few years, particularly over his relationship with the Guptas, a powerful family of wealthy businessmen alleged to have influenced his decision-making. The president and the Guptas both deny any wrongdoing.
The ANC said it would “study the judgment and discuss its full implications” on 10 January, while a parliamentary spokesman said that its rules committee “had already initiated a process” that would lead to the relevant rules being made. “In this regard, parliament will ensure finalisation of the process, in line with the court’s order,” Moloto Mothapo said.
Although Zuma has survived six motions of no confidence in parliament, including one in August involving a secret ballot, his power was diminished last week when the ANC chose Ramaphosa as its new leader, rather than Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the president’s ex-wife and his chosen successor.
It was well known that Nelson Mandela wanted Ramaphosa, a powerful union leader, to succeed him, but when Thabo Mbeki became president in 1999, Ramaphosa withdrew from political life, focusing instead on building a vast business empire.
While in his maiden speech as ANC leader he vowed to “act fearlessly against alleged corruption and abuse of office within our (the ANC’s) ranks”, the fact that he has been Zuma’s deputy since 2014 and his heavily criticised actions leading up to the massacre of 34 striking workers at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana mean the course he will strike is not yet clear.
Opposition politicians were quick to claim vindication after the ruling on Zuma. Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, tweeted: “I have always maintained Baleka (Mbete) acted as the chairperson of the ANC not as speaker of NA. We must begin impeachment process against a president who has looted the state’s resources.”
Another of the opposition parties that took the matter to court, Congress of the People, said the ruling had left Zuma exposed and put the ANC under pressure to act against him.
“He has reached a point at which he is like Saddam Hussein in a hole and there is no other chamber to go except to come out. He’s got to come out now,” said COPE leader, Mosiuoa Lekota.