CAPE TOWN, Saturday 29 August 2026 — The Western Cape High Court has dismissed an attempt by the uMkhonto weSizwe Party and United Africans Transformation to appeal an interim order restricting public hearings in President Cyril Ramaphosa‘s Phala Phala impeachment inquiry, leaving the restraint in place days before the court considers the underlying dispute.
Judge Matthew Francis dismissed the parties’ application for leave to appeal on Friday, finding that an appeal against the temporary restraint would not resolve the central question of whether the Section 89 independent panel report should ultimately be set aside.
The decision represents the latest court setback for parties seeking to allow Parliament’s impeachment inquiry to proceed to public hearings before Ramaphosa’s challenge to the panel report has been determined.
The president’s substantive review application is scheduled to be heard in the Western Cape High Court from 2 to 4 September.
That hearing is now likely to determine the immediate future of the impeachment process.
The dispute stems from a Section 89 independent panel report concerning the theft of foreign currency from Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo in February 2020.
The panel concluded that there was sufficient evidence for Ramaphosa potentially to have a case to answer.
Ramaphosa disputes those findings and is seeking to have the report reviewed and set aside.
The proceedings do not constitute a criminal trial, and the panel’s conclusions are not findings that the president committed a criminal offence.
On 24 July, the Western Cape High Court granted Ramaphosa an interim interdict preventing Parliament’s impeachment committee from proceeding with public hearings under Rule 129M of the National Assembly rules while his review remains unresolved.
The order did not completely suspend the committee.
It may continue preparatory work that falls outside the prohibited public hearings, including finalising its terms of reference and dealing with the appointment of its evidence leadership.
MK and UAT subsequently sought leave to appeal, arguing that the High Court had improperly interfered with an ongoing parliamentary process.
During argument last week, the parties also questioned whether the pending review would be decided quickly enough to justify keeping the impeachment hearings on hold.
Francis rejected that argument.
According to Saturday’s report on the judgment, the judge found that an appeal would run alongside the review proceedings without resolving the underlying dispute and could be overtaken by the review judgment itself.
He also noted that no Rule 129M public hearing was imminent.
The impeachment committee’s terms of reference are due to be considered on 1 September, while Ramaphosa has objected to the proposed chief evidence leader and a legal opinion has been sought.
Assistant evidence leaders had also not yet been appointed.
The ruling follows a separate setback for opposition parties at the Constitutional Court of South Africa earlier this month.
On 12 August, the Constitutional Court refused a direct application to appeal the interim order brought by the African Transformation Movement and supported by other parties including the EFF, MK and UAT.
The apex court concluded that it was not in the interests of justice to hear the appeal at that stage because the impending determination of Ramaphosa’s review could render the interim dispute moot.
Francis said that Constitutional Court decision was relevant to the latest application, although it did not itself determine the High Court’s decision.
He found that the approaching review hearing made the rationale for avoiding a parallel appeal stronger.
The decision leaves the political and constitutional dispute focused increasingly on next week’s review.
If Ramaphosa succeeds in overturning the independent panel’s report, the legal foundation underlying the current impeachment inquiry would be directly affected.
If his review fails, the interim restriction on public hearings would fall away and Parliament’s process could advance, subject to any further litigation.
The dispute follows an earlier Constitutional Court of South Africa judgment that revived the Phala Phala impeachment process after finding that the National Assembly had acted irrationally when it rejected the independent panel’s report.
Parliament subsequently established a 31-member impeachment committee representing 16 political parties to conduct the inquiry.
The committee is chaired by Rise Mzansi MP Makashule Gana.
Its work has since become the subject of several procedural and legal disputes, including disagreements over the evidence leader, potential witnesses and the extent to which Parliament should proceed while Ramaphosa challenges the report in court.
Those issues are politically significant because a Section 89 inquiry is Parliament’s constitutional mechanism for considering the removal of a president for serious violations of the Constitution or law, serious misconduct or an inability to perform the functions of office.
An inquiry does not itself remove a president.
Any eventual recommendation for removal would still require the constitutionally prescribed process and voting threshold in the National Assembly.
The latest ruling also comes during an increasingly intense political period for Ramaphosa.
South Africa entered the main campaign phase for the 4 November local government elections after candidate nominations closed at 17:00 on Friday.
Ramaphosa is leading the ANC’s national campaign while simultaneously facing the renewed parliamentary process arising from Phala Phala.
The timing therefore creates a potentially significant overlap between the court process, Parliament and the municipal election campaign.
The High Court’s refusal of leave to appeal does not resolve the merits of the allegations surrounding Phala Phala or determine whether Parliament’s impeachment inquiry should ultimately result in action against the president.
Instead, it clears another procedural dispute from the path of the more consequential case.
Attention will now turn first to the impeachment committee’s meeting on Monday, 1 September, and then to the Western Cape High Court, where Ramaphosa’s challenge to the Section 89 panel report is scheduled to begin the following day.
The outcome of that review could determine whether the impeachment inquiry moves towards public evidence hearings or whether the report that triggered the process is removed from the equation altogether.
