President Cyril Ramaphosa has brought an application to set aside the independent panel report into his fitness to hold office, asking the Constitutional Court to undo the findings of a process chaired by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo and triggered after the Phala Phala scandal placed his presidency under direct threat.

The report found that Ramaphosa had a prima facie case to answer over the cash hidden at his farm, his failure to report the theft through ordinary police channels, and his decision to involve Major-General Wally Rhoode of the Presidential Protection Unit.

In his application, Ramaphosa asks that “the report of the independent panel, dated 30 November 2022” be reviewed, declared “unlawful”, and “set aside”. He also asks the court to declare that “the National Assembly may not proceed to consider the report” and seeks an order that any party opposing him be directed “to pay the applicant’s costs”.

In plain terms, Ramaphosa is asking the Court to destroy the legal foundation of the impeachment process before Parliament can act on it.

His application implies that the panel did not merely get details wrong, but that it misunderstood its job from the start. Ramaphosa says the panel “misconceived its mandate, misjudged the information placed before it and misinterpreted the four charges advanced against me”.

The revived Section 89 process could place Ramaphosa before a public parliamentary inquiry involving documents, witnesses, testimony, and cross-examination. The Democratic Alliance’s inclusion of Glynnis Breytenbach on the impeachment committee is especially significant because she is likely to approach the process as a forensic political exercise, using contradictions, delays, missing documents, and evasive answers to keep pressure on the presidency.

Ramaphosa may try to delay the process. He may even survive an impeachment vote. But the danger for him is that the inquiry itself could further destroy the idea on which his political value rested. He was sold to South Africa, investors, and African National Congress (ANC) voters as the reformer who would clean up corruption and restore confidence in the state. Phala Phala has turned that claim inside out.

Ramaphosa is therefore not asking the court to clear him on Phala Phala. He is asking the court to remove the report from Parliament’s hands before the impeachment committee can turn its findings into a public political trial. If successful, the application would weaken the legal pathway to impeachment. If it fails, he faces a process that could expose the scandal in full public view and further reduce him from the idea of reform to a politically damaged man the ANC must decide whether to keep protecting.