Ramaphosa faces fresh Phala Phala scrutiny after court ruling

President Cyril Ramaphosa is facing renewed pressure in Parliament after South Africa’s Constitutional Court reopened the Phala Phala impeachment path and Parliament moved to establish an impeachment committee.

The court on May 8 set aside Parliament’s 2022 decision that had blocked the Phala Phala report, reviving a process that could lead to impeachment proceedings. Parliament said it would study the judgment and proceed with the steps required by the ruling.

On May 11, the Presidency said Ramaphosa would address the nation after the court judgment. In that address, Ramaphosa said he would not resign and would take the panel report on review.

AP reported the same day that Parliament was opening an impeachment committee in compliance with the ruling. The move turns the long-running controversy into an active parliamentary process again, with the next steps now centered on how quickly the committee is formally set up and how it will operate.

What the ruling changed

The Constitutional Court’s decision removed the barrier created by Parliament’s earlier vote and sent the matter back into the parliamentary process. That has forced the governing ANC and the presidency to respond to a fresh institutional test.

Official statements from the Presidency and Parliament confirm that the process is moving forward. The immediate political question is not whether the matter will return to Parliament, but how fast the committee will begin work.

What happens next

The open questions now are procedural and political: when Parliament formally constitutes the committee, what timetable it adopts, and whether Ramaphosa’s planned review application affects the pace of the process.

For now, the sequence is clear: the court revived the case, Parliament is acting on that ruling, and Ramaphosa is resisting resignation calls while preparing to challenge the panel report.