A high-stakes legal challenge has been launched to halt President Cyril Ramaphosa from appointing the next National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) next month, alleging the advisory panel’s process was unlawful and demanding its work be scrapped.
Law firm B Xulu and Partners Incorporated has lodged an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court seeking to interdict Ramaphosa from finalising an appointment based on the recommendations of an advisory panel.
Pressing for urgency
With a hearing set for January and a deadline for opposition set for New Year’s Eve, the race to control the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has entered legal terrain.
The firm is pressing for extreme urgency. It requests in its notice an order “dispensing with the prescribed forms, service and time periods and directing that the application be heard as one of urgency in terms…of the Uniform Rules of Court”.
Its immediate demand is for an interim order “interdicting and restraining the First Respondent [Ramaphosa] from taking any further steps towards the final appointment of a National Director of Public Prosecution pursuant to the recommendations of the Advisory Panel (Second Respondent) on or about 12 December 2025”.
Selection process questioned
The application also compels the state to provide “the entire record of proceedings conducted by the Second Respondent in relation to [the] selection process” within 15 days.
This record is intended to fuel the main legal challenge, with the applicant seeking “leave to file supplementary papers… upon receipt of the requested record”.
In that main challenge, the applicant seeks to have the panel’s entire recommendation declared invalid. They are asking the court for an order “Declaring the recommendation made by the Second Respondent… as unlawful” and “Reviewing and setting aside the recommendation”.
Tight deadline
The case will be supported by the affidavit of senior counsel Barnabas Xulu. Other respondents named include the Advisory Panel for the Selection of the NDPP, the Minister of Justice, and other key figures.
Opposing respondents face a tight deadline. They are required to notify the applicant’s attorneys “by 17:00 on Wednesday, 31 December 2025”.
With the case set for a hearing in January 2026, the legal action throws the critical process of appointing the country’s top prosecutor into profound uncertainty.
