A South African high court has temporarily halted parliamentary impeachment proceedings against President Cyril Ramaphosa, granting him breathing room in a legal saga that stretches back to a 2020 robbery at his private game farm. Western Cape High Court Judge Andre le Grange ruled on Friday that the parliamentary impeachment committee cannot proceed with its hearings until Ramaphosa's separate legal challenge against the panel report underpinning the inquiry has been heard in court. Two of the three judges ruled in the president's favour.

The case centres on what has been dubbed the "Farmgate" scandal. In 2020, thieves broke into Ramaphosa's Phala Phala game farm in Limpopo province — a region in South Africa's far north — and stole at least $580,000 in US dollar bills hidden inside a sofa. The theft only became public knowledge two years later when Arthur Fraser, a former intelligence chief and close ally of ex-president Jacob Zuma, filed an explosive dossier with police alleging the president had concealed the robbery from both police and tax authorities. Because the money was in undeclared foreign currency, potential violations of exchange control laws were also raised. Ramaphosa denied any wrongdoing, saying the cash came from the sale of buffaloes on his farm. Criminal prosecutors dropped all charges in 2024.

The constitutional path to impeachment was reopened in May this year when the Constitutional Court ruled that parliament had acted unlawfully in 2022 by rejecting an independent panel's finding that the president may have a case to answer. That ruling prompted the establishment of a parliamentary impeachment committee. Ramaphosa then launched a legal review challenging the panel's findings, arguing it had "misconceived its mandate" and "misinterpreted" the charges against him. His legal team argued that allowing the inquiry to continue before that review was heard could cause irreparable reputational harm. The review hearing is scheduled for September.

Reactions to Friday's ruling were sharply divided. The African National Congress (ANC), Ramaphosa's party, welcomed the decision and urged other parties to avoid "politically motivated distortions." The Democratic Alliance, a major opposition party, called the ruling "not unexpected" but said it did not prevent the committee from continuing preparatory work, with one MP describing the court intervention as merely "postponing the inevitable." The uMkhonto weSizwe party, led by Zuma, accused the president of using the courts to obstruct accountability. The African Transformation Movement warned the ruling set a dangerous precedent, suggesting any future president facing impeachment could simply seek a court interdict to block parliament from fulfilling its constitutional obligations.

Analysts note that even if proceedings eventually resume and advance, removing a sitting president would be an extraordinarily high bar to clear. Should it proceed, this would be the first impeachment process against a sitting South African president. Ramaphosa, for his part, said he "reaffirms his respect of judicial independence" and pledged to continue cooperating with accountability processes.