Ramaphosa's Phala Phala court bid: talk radio tracks a 'travesty' defence

Across two days in late May, South African talk radio converged on a single legal turn in the Phala Phala saga: President Cyril Ramaphosa's formal application to the Western Cape High Court to review and set aside the Section 89 independent panel report led by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. Cape Talk, 702 and Power FM all led bulletins with the filing, framing it as Ramaphosa reviving the legal challenge he first launched — and then abandoned — in 2022, after the Constitutional Court ruled this month that Parliament had acted irrationally when it voted down the panel's findings.

Presenters foregrounded Ramaphosa's own language: it would be a 'travesty', he argued, for Parliament to continue with an impeachment inquiry while the report underpinning it was being challenged in court. Stations also captured the first pushback — from the African Transformation Movement, which accused the President of 'Stalingrad' delay tactics — and the procedural reality that Parliament's 31-member impeachment committee was already being assembled. The coverage left open whether Ramaphosa would in fact seek an interim interdict, and how quickly the High Court would move.