Legal counsel for President Cyril Ramaphosa has argued that the National Assembly was correct not to adopt the Section 89 independent panel report in the Phala Phala matter as it was fundamentally flawed.
that found that there is a prima facie case for which the president must answer in relation to the theft at his Phala Phala farm.“But even if one assumes, for the sake of argument, that its interpretation is the correct one, that doesn’t answer the question whether the president deliberately and in bad faith adopted the wrong interpretation of the term ‘paid work’,” argues Budlender.
The EFF has argued that when a Section 89 panel finds prima facie evidence against a sitting head of state, the report should be sent directly to the Impeachment Committee instead of being debated in the National Assembly. Meanwhile, the African Transformation Movement ’s lawyer has argued that it was irrational for the ANC to rely on the completion of the investigations that looked into the conduct of President Cyril Ramaphosa.