At its most basic, the Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane overstepped her powers in investigating the CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency — and that President Cyril Ramaphosa did not wilfully mislead Parliament on 6 November 2019 in his response to an opposition question over a R500,000 donation from Bosasa, now Africa Global Operations.
The Public Protector may only investigate breaches in terms of the Executive Ethics Act and the Executive Ethics Code — and then only to the extent of the complaint. Money laundering was not within the scope of the Public Protector’s powers.
But the devil, as always, is in the detail.