Zuma impeachment calls grow after court rules on home upgrade scandal

South Africa’s highest court has ruled that the parliament failed to hold President Jacob Zuma to account in a scandal over state-funded upgrades to his country residence, fuelling opposition calls for him to be impeached.

The constitutional court ordered the national assembly to make rules that allow the president to be impeached, adding to Zuma’s difficulties after he was replacedlast week by Cyril Ramaphosa as leader of the ruling African National Congress.

Frustrated by setbacks in the national assembly, the leftwing Economic Freedom Fighters and other small opposition parties went to court as part of their campaign to impeach Zuma, who has lost support among ANC loyalists.

Last year, the court found that Zuma had violated the constitution when he refused to pay back public money spent on multimillion-pound upgrades to his rural home at Nkandla, in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Improvements to the homestead cost £11m and included a swimming pool, which the former police minister Nkosinathi Nhleko claimed was a “fire pool” for extinguishing fires; an amphitheatre, which Nhleko said could serve as an emergency assembly point, as well as a chicken run and cattle enclosure.

The court cited section 89 of South Africa’s constitution, which allows for the president to be removed for serious misconduct, or violation of the constitution or law, if two thirds of the members of the national assembly are in agreement.

“We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account … The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office,” judge Chris Jafta said, handing down the judgment, which was supported by a majority of the court.

“Properly interpreted, section 89 implicitly imposes an obligation on the assembly to make rules specially tailored for the removal of the president from office. By omitting to include such rules, the assembly has failed to fulfil this obligation.”

Despite a damning 2014 report into the upgrades by the then public protector, Thuli Madonsela, Zuma managed to avoid paying anything until 2016, when he refunded 7.8m of the 100m rand spent on Nkandla.

Opposition parties blamed Baleka Mbete, the speaker of the national assembly, for parliament’s failures on Nkandla. Mbete was accused of personally trying to protect Zuma over the upgrades after she said: “In the African tradition, you don’t interfere with a man’s kraal (cattle enclosure).”

The court’s chief justice, Mogoeng Mogoeng, disagreed with his colleagues over the ruling, but it was not enough to change it.

After Mogoeng passed him a note, Jafta said: “The chief justice characterises the majority judgement as a textbook case of judicial overreach, a constitutionally impermissible intrusion by the judiciary into the exclusive domain of parliament.”

The ruling will probably trigger an investigation into the grounds for impeaching Zuma, who has faced many calls for his resignation in the past few years, particularly over his relationship with the Guptas, a powerful family of wealthy businessmen alleged to have influenced his decision-making. The president and the Guptas both deny any wrongdoing.

The ANC said it would “study the judgment and discuss its full implications” on 10 January, while a parliamentary spokesman said that its rules committee “had already initiated a process” that would lead to the relevant rules being made. “In this regard, parliament will ensure finalisation of the process, in line with the court’s order,” Moloto Mothapo said.

Although Zuma has survived six motions of no confidence in parliament, including one in August involving a secret ballot, his power was diminished last week when the ANC chose Ramaphosa as its new leader, rather than Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the president’s ex-wife and his chosen successor.

It was well known that Nelson Mandela wanted Ramaphosa, a powerful union leader, to succeed him, but when Thabo Mbeki became president in 1999, Ramaphosa withdrew from political life, focusing instead on building a vast business empire.

In his maiden speech as ANC leader Ramaphosa vowed to “act fearlessly against alleged corruption and abuse of office within our (the ANC’s) ranks”, though his victory in the leadership race was marred by the failure of key allies to win roles on the party’s decision-making body.

Opposition politicians were quick to claim vindication after the ruling on Zuma. Mmusi Maimane, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, tweeted: “We must begin impeachment process against a president who has looted the state’s resources.”

Another of the opposition parties that took the matter to court, Congress of the People, said the ruling had left Zuma exposed and put the ANC under pressure to act against him.

“He has reached a point at which he is like Saddam Hussein in a hole and there is no other chamber to go except to come out. He’s got to come out now,” said COPE leader, Mosiuoa Lekota.