Civil rights organisation AfriForum on Friday said it was shocked at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s intention to appeal the High Court ruling that former President Jacob Zuma had acted unlawfully by participating in a process to abolish the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal.

The Law Society of South Africa and six Zimbabwean farmers, who were represented by AfriForum, had approached the Pretoria High Court seeking declaratory relief relating to two decisions of the South African government to support a resolution suspending the operation of the SADC Tribunal in 2011.

The application was brought as the abolishment of the tribunal had deprived citizens of the SADC region of the right to appeal to a regional human rights court if their rights were denied in their own countries.

In 2011 and 2012, Zuma supported repeated SADC summit decisions – punted by Zimbabwe’s former President Robert Mugabe – which, in effect, suspended the operations of the SADC Tribunal.

The State Attorney had given notice about President Ramaphosa’s intention to appeal the ruling.

AfriForum’s spokesperson and legal representative Willie Spies said that Ramaphosa’s decision to appeal the ruling came as a shock, because the general expectation was that his administration would place a higher premium on the rule of law than his predecessor did.

AfriForum had stated that the Chief Justice would shortly issue directives regarding the application for leave to appeal, as well as the six farmers’ application to ratify the ruling.