ANC secretary Magashule goes to court to reverse his suspension

Ace Magashule wants the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to reverse his recent ANC suspension.

Magashule has asked the court to suspend the party’s president Cyril Ramaphosa instead. Magashule has served the ANC, Ramaphosa – in his personal and ANC capacity and deputy secretary-general Jesse Duarte with court papers.

In the documents, Magashule claimed that he is a victim of Ramaphosa’s faction in the ANC. The court papers surfaced on Friday morning, 14 May.

Ace Magashule wants the court to reverse his suspension and suspend Ramaphosa instead. Image: @myanc Source: Instagram News24 reports that Magashule asked the court to hear the case on 1 June on an urgent basis.

He also wants the party’s “step-aside rule” as well as his suspension letter from Ramaphosa to be declared unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.

The publication said Magashule also wants his suspension of Ramaphosa to be declared valid and effective until lawfully nullified.

He also wants the court to declare the instruction for him to apologize to Ramaphosa for trying to suspend him unlawful.

TimesLIVE reports that Magashule also urged the court to declare unconstitutional the ANC’s entire step-aside rule.

The outlet said the resolution was first adopted by the ANC’s national conference in Nasrec in 2107 and was recently fine-tuned by the party’s by the party’s national executive committee for full implementation.

It dictates that ANC members facing corruption or criminal charges should voluntarily step aside from their positions.

SABC News added that Magashule has until the end of business on Friday to publicly apologize to ANC structures for sending a letter of suspension to Ramaphosa. He will face further action if he fails to do so.

Earlier this week, the ruling party said it would further discipline Magashule if he did not apologize for trying to retaliate against Ramaphosa for his suspension.