JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s top court on Friday ruled that Parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account in a scandal over multi-million-dollar upgrades to his private home, in a decision that fueled opposition calls for the president to be impeached.
The Constitutional Court’s ruling followed its conclusion last year that Zuma violated the constitution when he benefited inappropriately from state funding for his Nkandla home. It was one of a series of presidential scandals that have tarnished the reputation of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the main anti-apartheid movement that has led South Africa since the first all-race elections in 1994.
Zuma has survived opposition efforts to oust him in votes of no confidence in Parliament, where the ANC party has a majority. Frustrated by setbacks in the National Assembly, the opposition went to court as part of their campaign to impeach Zuma, who has lost support among ruling party loyalists.
Zuma was replaced as party leader this month by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, a critic of the corruption that has undermined South Africa’s economy.
“We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account,” said Chris Jafta, a Constitutional Court judge who read out the ruling.
He called for Parliament to institute rules that would provide for a president’s removal. Parliament said in a statement that it would comply with the instruction.
The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s main opposition party, said its motion to impeach Zuma should be debated in Parliament “as soon as reasonably possible.”
The court ruling cited a constitutional provision that says Parliament “may remove” a president from office by a two-thirds majority for a “serious violation” of the law, as well as a separate requirement that constitutional obligations must be “performed diligently and without delay.”
Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng disagreed with the majority ruling, describing it as judicial overreach.
The ruling party said it will study the ruling and discuss it at a high-level meeting on Jan. 10.
South African president suffers another legal setback
South African president suffers another legal setback
TikTok finalizes deal to form new American entity
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American entity, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the United States that has been in discussion for years.
The social video platform company signed agreements with major investors including Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX to form the new TikTok US joint venture. The new version will operate under “defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation and software assurances for US users,” the company said in a statement Thursday. American TikTok users can continue using the same app.
Adam Presser, who previously worked as TikTok’s head of operations and trust and safety, will lead the new venture as its CEO. He will work alongside a seven-member, majority-American board of directors that includes TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew.
The deal marks the end of years of uncertainty about the fate of the popular video-sharing platform in the United States. After wide bipartisan majorities in Congress passed — and President Joe Biden signed — a law that would ban TikTok in the US if it did not find a new owner in the place of China’s ByteDance, the platform was set to go dark on the law’s January 2025 deadline. For a several hours, it did. But on his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to keep it running while his administration sought an agreement for the sale of the company.
In addition to an emphasis on data protection, with US user data being stored locally in a system run by Oracle, the joint venture will also focus on TikTok’s algorithm. The content recommendation formula, which feeds users specific videos tailored to their preferences and interests, will be retrained, tested and updated on US user data, the company said in its announcement.
Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX are the three managing investors, who each hold a 15 percent share. Other investors include the investment firm of Michael Dell, the billionaire founder of Dell Technologies. ByteDance retains 19.9 percent of the joint venture.
