Chief Justice Mandisa Maya did not deliver the unanimous judgement but the majority judgement, the author writes.
On 8 May 2026, another landmark judgement was delivered by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa. That significant ruling found Parliament’s conclusion to block an impeachment inquiry into President Cyril Ramaphosa to be invalid and unconstitutional.
Let’s agree from the very beginning: this process was engineered by political actors, whose end game is nothing but wrestling for political power, and hence the outcome will be played out in the public as if there was a single voice that came out of No 1 Hospital Street, Constitutional Hill, Braamfontein.
Chief Justice Mandisa Maya did not deliver the unanimous judgement but the majority judgement.
The contentious risk of majority judgements is judicial overreach, where the majority encroaches into the exclusive domain of the legislature. In the case of upper courts with multi-judge benches, such as 5-4 or 6-3 splits, the prevailing law is determined simply by counting those who are for and against.
