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This morning, the Constitutional Court handed down judgment in favour of the DA’s case to compel the ANC to make public its complete cadre deployment records dating back to 1 January 2013, when President Cyril Ramaphosa became chairman of the cadre deployment committee. Download the judgment here.

In terms of the judgment, the ANC now has five working days to hand over to the DA all meeting minutes, CVs, email threads, Whatsapp discussions and other relevant documents relating to the cadre deployment committee, dating back more than a decade. The ANC has run out of road and must now expose the secrets it was so desperate to hide.

The ruling comes after the ANC appealed to the Constitutional Court in a last-ditch attempt to hide its dirty cadre secrets from the people of South Africa. This followed from earlier judgments handed down by the Gauteng High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal, which both confirmed that the DA was right that the people of South Africa have the right to know how the ANC’s cadre deployment committee interferes in appointments to the public sector.

Today marks one of the great victories in South African legal and democratic history.

This ruling will firstly ensure transparency, by forcing the ANC to reveal exactly how Ramaphosa’s cadre deployment committee laid the foundation for state capture by interfering in public appointment processes. It also sets a powerful new precedent that empowers all South Africans to use the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to force the ANC to reveal how it interferes in appointments. The DA encourages any South African who has been overlooked for a public sector job to use this precedent to force the ANC to reveal how it uses cadre deployment to block skilled applicants from being appointed in order to favour its chosen cadres.

The case is also of historic significance in the ongoing battle against state capture. The records are set to reveal, once and for all, that President Cyril Ramaphosa was personally involved in the state capture project in his capacity as cadre deployment chairman. The State Capture Commission has already confirmed that the ANC deployment committee was a key cog in the machine that corrupted and collapsed the public sector, because it was this committee that illegally intervened to ensure the appointment of the people who captured the state. Thanks to this ruling, the people of South African will finally get the opportunity to see the full scale of the ANC’s complicity in state capture.

Cadre deployment is not a victimless crime. It lies at the heart of state capture and corruption. It is also the root cause of the collapse in state capacity, because it enables the ANC to appoint people in the public sector on the basis of loyalty to the party, rather than on the basis of merit and skill. This destroys the capacity of the state to deliver services, rendering cadre deployment as a key cause of crises like loadshedding, water-shedding, infrastructure collapse and economic decline.

On the back of this historic victory, the DA keenly awaits the outcome of our separate application in the Gauteng High Court to declare cadre deployment unconstitutional and unlawful. We believe the Constitutional Court’s ruling is important in that context, because it confirms that the actions of the ANC cadre deployment committee directly affects the public. The DA’s victory in the ruling handed down today is based on the premise – now vindicated by the highest court in the land – that the deployment committee does not merely make “recommendations,” but actively influences public sector appointment in an unlawful manner.

The Democratic Alliance is the only political party that has put its money where its mouth is by fighting cadre deployment corruption head on. We do not only talk about building a capable state and eradicating corruption. We actively use every tool at our disposal to fight for a capable state. That is why the DA has chosen to pursue a deliberate legal strategy that paves the way towards abolishing cadre deployment from the face of this country after the 2024 election. We encourage every South African who shares our dream for a skilled and merit-based public service that delivers quality services to all, to register and vote DA at check.da.org.za.

Issued by Dr Leon Schreiber MP - DA Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration