Only a court can now ‘unsuspend’ Ramaphosa, adamant Magashule says

Suspended ANC secretarygeneral Ace Magashule insists that party president Cyril Ramaphosa remains “suspended” until a court of law decides otherwise.

Magashule argues in his responding affidavit, filed at the high court in Johannesburg, that the party’s highest decisionmaking body between conferences, the national executive committee (NEC), had no legal standing to declare his letter to Ramaphosa suspending him “unlawful and invalid”.

On Monday, Magashule said that even if the party’s NEC had the power to do so, the manner in which Ramaphosa’s suspension was dismissed by the NEC, was not in line with laws of “natural justice”.

Magashule has resorted to the courts following his suspension by the party for refusing to step aside from his position after he was charged for corruption, theft, fraud and money laundering in the R255m asbestos tender in the Free State.

He was premier of the province then and provincial chairperson of the ANC when the tender was awarded.

He is still to face a party disciplinary process for “suspending” Ramaphosa without the say-so from the party. In earlier papers to the court, he argued it was within his powers as the party secretary-general to do so.

FRICTION

His court action has heightened friction within the party as the two factions, one linked to the president’s efforts to rid the party of corruption and mismanagement, and the other headed by Magashule and the so-called radical economic transformation grouping said to be at the centre of state capture allegations during former president Jacob Zuma’s rule.

Magashule is protesting that Ramaphosa was allowed to be present in the meeting that discussed his suspension.

What makes matters worse, he added, was that Ramaphosa was the same person to communicate the verdict in the case about him.

It was for these reasons that Magashule held that Ramaphosa should remain suspended until he took his suspension on review in a court of law.

If the court allowed the NEC dismissal of his letter suspending Ramaphosa, only anarchy would prevail, he said.

“Suffice to say one cannot imagine a bigger affront or violation of the rule of law than the anarchy which might follow if any person was allowed to resort to self-help by simply ignoring actions taken in terms of empowering provisions of statutory law or the common law, by simply ignoring those actions without taking any steps to declare them unlawful by using the correct and available legal processes,” he argued.

“This is exactly what [Ramaphosa] and [the ANC] did in respect to the suspension of Mr Ramaphosa. No court can conceivably endorse this kind of conduct.”

According to Magashule, the ANC NEC, by declaring Ramaphosa’s suspension to be “of no effect” and thus set aside, had usurped the powers of the courts and was effectively a “kangaroo court” by suspending Magashule in absentia.

Magashule also petitioned the court to dismiss the ANC submission that he suspended Ramaphosa “in retaliation” after receiving his own suspension letter for refusing to step aside. This argument by ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte, Magashule said, was not only unsubstantiated but also “farfetched” and “laughable”.

RECUSED

Ramaphosa, he believes, should have recused himself from the NEC meeting that deliberated his suspension.

His presence in the meeting muddied the waters, Magashule submitted. “Mr Ramaphosa was technically the complainant, arbiter and executioner all rolled in one,” Magashule wrote in his affidavit.

“He was the party in whose favour the NEC was to rule, and at the same time part of the decision-making body as to the validity of the suspension letter, and an executioner as a participant in the summary sanction by the NEC that I be instructed to apologise to him under the threat of institution of disciplinary hearing against me.

“The NEC purported to exercise a review and/or appellate function to set aside my decision to suspend Mr Ramaphosa in circumstances where Mr Ramaphosa had not sought a review or appealed my decision.”

The case is expected to be heard at the end of June.