In a unanimous ruling, a full bench of the Western Cape High Court dismissed Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane's urgent bid for immediate reinstatement to her position.
That same full bench – Judges Lister Nuku, Matthew Francis and James Lekhuleni – last month ruled that President Cyril Ramaphosa's decision to suspend Mkhwebane was unlawful and invalid.
The judges were convinced that Ramaphosa's decision to suspend Mkhwebane - a day after she announced she would investigate an Executive Members Ethics Act complaint against him over the 2020 break-in at his Phala Phala farm - was improper.
The court stated:
After the DA launched an application to appeal that ruling to the Constitutional Court, thereby immediately suspending it, Mkhwebane bought an application for its immediate enforcement – which both the DA and Ramaphosa opposed.
The full bench has now dismissed that application and ordered Mkhwebane to pay nearly all of the DA's legal costs in the case.
Ramaphosa is also seeking to challenge the invalidation of his decision to suspend Mkhwebane, which he is adamant was the consequence of Parliament alerting him that it had begun its inquiry into her fitness to hold office.
It agreed with both the DA and Ramaphosa that the president's decision to suspend Mkhwebane had to be referred to the Constitutional Court for confirmation "independent of any steps taken by any of the parties" – and, as such, that the law governing the immediate enforcement of orders "has no application" in this case.
This is a developing story.