On Wednesday 29 May 2019, the South African President Ramaphosa announced his cabinet. Among the people he announced as part of his cabinet were Mr Pravin Gordhan (Mr Gordhan) and Mr Fikile Mbalula (Mr Mbalula).

PENSIONGATE

A week previously, on Friday 24 May 2019, the Office of the Public Protector had released a report in which it found that Mr Gordhan had “failed to uphold” and to “act in accordance with the [South African] Constitution”. This conclusion resulted from a finding by the Office of the Public Protector that Mr Gordhan had – while Minister of Finance in 2010 – approved early retirement, with full benefits, for a 55 year old senior civil servant and, at the same time, approved that civil servant’s continued remunerated appointment in the same position without a break in service.

The Office of the Public Protector took the view that on the facts presented to it, “there was no retirement in fact and in law”, and so the civil servant “was not entitled to early retirement with full benefits”. It concluded in the report that Mr Gordhan was not authorised by applicable legislation to approve the early retirement and the re-appointment of the civil servant. It found that the arrangement was “contrived and not lawful”.

By way of remedial action in terms of the powers conferred on it by section 182(1)(c) of the South African Constitution, the Office of the Public Protector directed that the President

“take appropriate disciplinary action against [Mr Gordhan] for failing to uphold the values and principles of public administration entrenched in section 195 of the Constitution, and the duty conferred on Members of the Cabinet in terms of section 92(3)(a) of the Constitution to act in accordance with the Constitution”

For convenience and ease of reference I shall refer to this matter as “Pensiongate”.

On Tuesday 28 May 2019 – the day before the President announced his cabinet – Mr Gordhan launched an application in the High Court challenging the jurisdiction (or power) of the Office of the Public Protector to investigate Pensiongate.

He also wants the High Court to declare that the Office of the Public Protector has acted not only in contravention of the Public Protector Act but also in contravention of the Constitution itself. In addition to seeking a costs order against anyone who may dare oppose his application, he also wants the High Court to order the Public Protector herself to pay costs of his application from her own pocket and on a punitive scale.

In short, Mr Gordhan wants the High Court to set aside the report of the Office of the Public Protector as being “unconstitutional, unlawful, irrational and invalid”.

DUBAIGATE

On 19 December 2018, the Office of the Public Protector released a report in which it found that Mr Mbalula had acted in contravention of the Executive Members Ethics Code and the South African Constitution.

This conclusion resulted from a finding that Mr Mbalula had – while Minister of Sports – taken a holiday to Dubai with his family which was funded by a company that at that time did business with a sporting federation (SASCOC) that fell under the auspices of Mr Mbalula’s department and so constituted a conflict of interest on his part.

No remedial action was taken against Mr Mbalula by the Office of the Public Protector. Nevertheless, he threatened to challenge the report in the High Court. It is not clear whether or not he did.

THE LAW

In numerous interviews, attorneys for Mr Gordhan have consistently expressed the view that the report of the Office of the Public Protector has no legal effect (in other words, it is suspended) because Mr Gordhan has launched review proceedings to have it set aside. This view has been repeated by various analysts and reported, with apparent approval, by almost all journalists on the story.

But this view does not seem to accord with what the courts have said. It is the only issue that is dealt with in this discussion.

The merits of the review application will not be discussed here.

But before we get to what the courts have said about the status of the report of the Office of the Public Protector, it is important to distinguish between two court processes, namely, an appeal and a review.

Difference Between Appeals and Reviews

This is a complex subject but I shall try to simplify it.

In an appeal, the appellant challenges the correctness in law of the decision of the lower court or tribunal. In other words, the appellant wants the higher court or tribunal to reverse the decision on the ground that the decision is wrong in law.

In terms of the Rules of the High Court, and now also in terms of the Superior Courts Act of 2013, once the appellant has given notice to the respondent that he intends challenging the decision on appeal, the decision appealed against is automatically suspended, unless the respondent brings an application for an order that the decision is not suspended, and that order is granted.

This makes perfect sense in law and logic because giving effect to a decision which is subsequently set aside as being wrong in law would bring the rule of law into disrepute.

Different considerations, however, apply where a decision is challenged by way of review. The question on review is not whether or not the decision is wrong in law or on a legal point. That is not the function of a review court. South African courts have said this.

This consideration may easily be confused – perhaps by non-lawyers – with some grounds of review under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000 (PAJA), on the one hand, and grounds of review under the legality principle, on the other, which seem, on the face of it, to look into the correctness of a decision in law.

Under PAJA and legality review, it is the “action” or “conduct” or decision to do something (or not to do something) that is in issue. In an appeal, it is the decision (as in judgment or ruling) itself or the legal basis for the decision (as in judgment or ruling) itself that is in issue. In other words, a decision by a court or tribunal that an application for review of the report, even before it has been decided one way or another, suspends the report and its legal effect, is as a ruling either correct in law or it is not, and so is susceptible to appeal to a higher court or tribunal. But a decision of the decision-maker that is attacked on the basis that she has misdirected herself in law, or applied the wrong principle in arriving at her decision, or conducted herself unconstitutionally, goes to the conduct as informed by the misdirection or wrong principle and so is susceptible to review, not appeal.

In short, an appeal is concerned with whether the decision (as in ruling or judgment) is right or wrong in law. A review application is concerned with whether the decision is justified or not, or vitiated by some irregularity causing actual prejudice. In addition, South African courts have said that a review application cannot succeed unless the applicant can show that he has suffered actual prejudice. In an appeal, the decision being challenged will be reversed if it is found to be wrong in law, whether or not there is prejudice to the appellant.

Does a Review Application Suspend the Decision?

When a person is aggrieved by a decision on any of the recognised grounds of review – whether under PAJA or legality principle – and he wants to suspend the decision from taking effect until the review application has been finally decided one way or another, he usually brings an application in two parts but in the same papers.

“Part A” is usually an application for an interim interdict in which the applicant asks the court to suspend operation of the decision against him or, if implementation of the decision is already underway, to suspend further implementation until “Part B” (the review application) of the application has been decided.

“Part A”, seeking to interdict implementation of the decision, is usually sought on an urgent or semi-urgent basis. In that case the applicant will have to satisfy the court that because implementation of the decision is imminent, or has already commenced, he will not obtain substantial remedy in due course if the court does not stop the process of implementation now. He does that by way of interim interdict, not review. If the interim interdict is granted, then implementation of the decision will be suspended until the Part B review has been decided one way or another.

In order to secure the interim interdict, and so the suspension of the decision, the applicant will have to satisfy all four requirements for an interim interdict. But, even if he does, the court still has a discretion nevertheless to refuse the interdict if it considers it in the interests of justice to do so.

So, the “Part B” review application seeks to set aside the decision on the recognised grounds of review. That is all it does. It does not suspend implementation of the decision. It is the “Part A” interim interdict that does that. Thus, to those people who say it is ludicrous to implement a decision that may be set aside on review, this is your answer.

Two of the important requirements for an interim interdict are (1) that the balance of convenience favours the granting of the interdict than not granting it because of the (2) apprehension of irreparable harm that may be occasioned if the court should refuse to grant it now. These requirements are intended to address precisely the sort of concern that has been raised about the President implementing the remedial action taken by the Office of the Public Protector only for it to be set aside by the High Court by which time the person to whom the remedial action relates has been subjected to what by then is found to be unlawful or irrational or invalid or unconstitutional.

But Mr Gordhan has not asked the court for an interim interdict. That was his choice. He has simply asked the court to review the report and set it aside. So the protection of an interdict described immediately above is not available to him. There are a number of court judgments, including the Constitutional Court, that say a court cannot validly grant orders that the applicant has not asked for.

But what do the courts say about the legal effect of the report or remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector before it has been set aside by a court? This question can be answered with reference to three judgments. There are more but let us confine ourselves to these three.

In Oudekraal Estates (Pty) Ltd v City of Cape Town 2004 (6) SA 222 (SCA) the Supreme Court of Appeal said:

“But the question that arises is what consequences follow from the conclusion that the Administrator acted unlawfully.  Is the permission that was granted by the Administrator simply to be disregarded as if it had never existed?  In other words, was the Cape Metropolitan Council entitled to disregard the Administrator’s approval and all its consequences merely because it believed that they were invalid provided that its belief was correct?  In our view it was not.  Until the Administrator’s approval (and thus also the consequences of the approval) is set aside by a court in proceedings for judicial review it exists in fact and it has legal consequences that cannot simply be overlooked. The proper functioning of a modern state would be considerably compromised if all administrative acts could be given effect to or ignored depending upon the view the subject takes of the validity of the act in question.  No doubt it is for this reason that our law has always recognized that even an unlawful administrative act is capable of producing legally valid consequences for so long as the unlawful act is not set aside.”

So, even if the decision of the Office of the Public Protector is unlawful, it is binding and has legal effect until it has been set aside by a court in review proceedings. It cannot be ignored just because the person affected by it takes the view that it is unlawful or unconstitutional or irrational or invalid.

Just over a decade after the Oudekraal judgment, the Supreme Court of Appeal again reinforced the principle, this time in relation to a decision of the Office of the Public Protector.

So, in SABC v DA 2016 (2) SA 522 (SCA), the SCA said:

 “[I]t is well settled in our law that until a decision is set aside by a court in proceedings for judicial review it exists in fact and it has legal consequences that cannot simply be overlooked (Oudekraal Estates (Pty) Ltd v City of Cape Town & others [2004] ZASCA 48; 2004 (6) SA 222 (SCA) para 26). It was submitted, however, that that principle applies only to the decision of an administrative functionary or body, which the Public Protector is not. It suffices for present purposes to state that if such a principle finds application to the decisions of an administrative functionary then, given the unique position that the Public Protector occupies in our constitutional order, it must apply with at least equal or perhaps even greater force to the decisions finally arrived at by that institution. After all, the rationale for the principle in the administrative law context (namely, that the proper functioning of a modern State would be considerably compromised if an administrative act could be given effect to or ignored depending upon the view the subject takes of the validity of the act in question (Oudekraal para 26)), would at least apply as much to the institution of the Public Protector and to the conclusions contained in her published reports.”

That same year, in EFF v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others 2016 (3) SA 580 (CC), the Constitutional Court, no less, said the following in relation to the status of the remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector and about the only means by which its sting can be avoided:

 “[O]ur constitutional order hinges also on the rule of law.  No decision grounded on the Constitution or law may be disregarded without recourse to a court of law.  To do otherwise would “amount to a licence to self-help”.  Whether the Public Protector’s decisions amount to administrative action or not, the disregard for remedial action by those adversely affected by it, amounts to taking the law into their own hands and is illegal.  No binding and constitutionally or statutorily sourced decision may be disregarded willy-nilly.  It has legal consequences and must be complied with or acted upon.  To achieve the opposite outcome lawfully, an order of court would have to be obtained.”

So, in order to avoid the legal consequences of the remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector “an order of court would have to be obtained”. The Constitutional Court did not say the launching of a review application avoids the legal consequences of the remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector. It said in order to achieve that result, an order of court would have to be obtained.

Mr Gordhan has not obtained an order of court. He has simply filed an application for review. He has not obtained an interdict. He has not yet obtained an order reviewing and setting aside the report of the Office of the Public Protector.

Neither has Mr Mbalula although no remedial action was taken in relation to him.

So, what now? The President has been directed by the Office of the Public Protector to

“take appropriate disciplinary action against [Mr Gordhan] for failing to uphold the values and principles of public administration entrenched in section 195 of the Constitution, and the duty conferred on Members of the Cabinet in terms of section 92(3)(a) of the Constitution to act in accordance with the Constitution”

The President has not indicated what disciplinary action he has taken against Mr Gordhan (at least not at the time of writing this blog). The Office of the Public Protector is an important institution established in order to “strengthen constitutional democracy in the Republic”. Its decision may not be ignored willy-nilly, especially by the first citizen whom the Constitutional Court has described in these terms:

 “The President is the Head of State and Head of the national Executive.  His is indeed the highest calling to the highest office in the land.  He is the first citizen of this country and occupies a position indispensable for the effective governance of our democratic country.  Only upon him has the constitutional obligation to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution as the supreme law of the Republic been expressly imposed.  The promotion of national unity and reconciliation falls squarely on his shoulders.  As does the maintenance of orderliness, peace, stability and devotion to the well-being of the Republic and all of its people.  Whoever and whatever poses a threat to our sovereignty, peace and prosperity he must fight.  To him is the executive authority of the entire Republic primarily entrusted.  He initiates and gives the final stamp of approval to all national legislation.  And almost all the key role players in the realisation of our constitutional vision and the aspirations of all our people are appointed and may ultimately be removed by him.  Unsurprisingly, the nation pins its hopes on him to steer the country in the right direction and accelerate our journey towards a peaceful, just and prosperous destination, that all other progress-driven nations strive towards on a daily basis.  He is a constitutional being by design, a national pathfinder, the quintessential commander-in-chief of State affairs and the personification of this nation’s constitutional project.”

By not implementing the remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector, in the absence of an order of court by which the legal effect of the remedial action can lawfully be avoided, has the President not thereby contravened the very Constitution he has taken an oath to uphold?

Assuming the President simply “reprimands” Mr Gordhan as a form of giving effect to the remedial action, is that substantive compliance with the remedial action? Is that an effective remedy for what the Office of the Public Protector (a Constitutional institution charged with “strengthen[ing] constitutional  democracy in the Republic”) has found to be contravention of the Constitution itself? What message would that send about the President’s commitment to the Constitution and its values?

Often the argument advanced for ignoring the remedial action of the Office of the Public Protector is that the head of that Office has been found in two High Court judgments to be “incompetent”. While that is a ground for removal of the Public Protector from Office by a majority of two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly, does a finding of a court (which does not have the power to remove the Public Protector from Office) justify the President ignoring the decisions of the Office?

Also, what seems lost in the personalisation of the Office of the Public Protector is that this is an institution established in terms of the Apex Law of the country (the Constitution) by national legislation. It is not its incumbent head anymore than “the Presidency” is the President.

We have a popular President (if mainstream media reports and opinion pieces are an accurate indication) and an even more popular Minister in Mr Gordhan. Some may raise a concern, not without justification, whether the Rule of Law in South Africa today is driven by media popularity.

But there may be hope still that the courts are immune to being swept up in the strong pop culture currents. The Chief Justice has cautioned against judges sacrificing justice at the altar of public opinion. Whether or not any one of the many civic organisations in the country will, for the sake of constitutional certainty, dare ask the courts to decide whether the President’s conduct is an attack on the Constitution will be the measure of society’s own commitment to it.