CAPE TOWN - The Western Cape High Court has spent three days hearing President Cyril Ramaphosa's legal challenge to the Phala Phala report.
UCT’s Professor Richard Calland is surprised that the independent panel's findings are still being argued in the courts.
“I think it would mean that Parliament would probably reflect on the process that it's put in place. And the idea here is that the panel, the middle part of that three-part process, is designed to be a buffer.
“It's designed deliberately to ensure that frivolous, vexatious or otherwise entirely inappropriate and ill-founded allegations do not trigger an impeachment process. An impeachment of a president is an extremely serious step.
“It can be highly destabilising for any democracy, and so it shouldn't be taken on lightly for obvious reasons. And so Parliament's intention here was to ensure that that wouldn't happen, that only cases where a president has a case to answer, where there is sufficient evidence of a serious breach of the law or serious misconduct under the Constitution, would proceed to a full hearing in Parliament,” Calland said.