South Africa’s highest court ruled on Friday that President Cyril Ramaphosa should face an impeachment inquiry in Parliament over a scandal involving a theft on his farm, dealing a potentially grave blow to his political future.
The ruling, which refers to a case in which more than half a million dollars was stolen after being stashed in a couch at Mr. Ramaphosa’s game farm, immediately generated calls from political opponents that he resign.
On Friday, the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg declared invalid a law that allowed Parliament to reject an independent panel’s recommendation in 2022 that Mr. Ramaphosa face an impeachment hearing.
The panel had expressed skepticism at Mr. Ramaphosa’s explanation of how such a large sum of money had ended up being hidden in, and then stolen from, a couch in 2020. The panel also said that the president had abused his power by trying to get Namibia’s president to help in the theft investigation, that he may have flouted foreign currency laws and that he may have violated the Constitution in conducting private business in conflict with his official duties.
Mr. Ramaphosa received a reprieve when members of Parliament voted against the panel’s recommendation that he face an impeachment hearing. At the time, Mr. Ramaphosa’s party, the African National Congress, held 230 of the 400 seats in Parliament. In all, 214 members voted against continuing with the inquiry, while 148 voted in favor.
The Economic Freedom Fighters, an opposition party, filed a court challenge to contest Parliament’s refusal to adopt the panel’s recommendation. That is the case on which the Constitutional Court ruled on Friday.
If an impeachment hearing were to proceed, the president would be ousted if two-thirds of lawmakers voted for his removal.
Mr. Ramaphosa would have a more difficult time getting the support of Parliament now. His party won 40 percent of the vote in national elections in 2024 and no longer holds an outright majority.
When the panel’s recommendation was issued in November 2022, Vincent Magwenya, a spokesman for Mr. Ramaphosa, said that the president was considering all options, including resignation. Ultimately, Mr. Ramaphosa stayed and won his party’s backing. But the saga dented his reputation as an anticorruption crusader; Mr. Ramaphosa came to power in 2017 vowing to reverse years of graft under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma.
Mr. Ramaphosa’s troubles with the theft started in June 2022, when Arthur Fraser, a political opponent and former national spy chief, filed a criminal complaint alleging that $4 million to $8 million in U.S. currency had been stolen from Mr. Ramaphosa’s game farm, Phala Phala, in February 2020. Mr. Fraser said that the theft was never reported to avoid scrutiny.
Mr. Ramaphosa denied any wrongdoing. He said that the actual amount stolen was $580,000 and that the money had been paid by a Sudanese businessman who was buying 20 buffaloes from the farm. Mr. Ramaphosa said that a manager at the farm had stowed the money under the cushions of a couch, thinking it would be safer there than in a safe because several workers at the property had access to the safe.
