Three aggrieved ANC Eastern Cape members have filed a contempt of court application against ANC leaders. South Africa is now witnessing what appears to be a direct confrontation between the authority of the courts, and the conduct of those entrusted to uphold them.
The battleground is the disputed ANC Eastern Cape provincial conference scheduled for East London ICC in KuGompo, a venue that is no stranger to ANC disputes.
Interdict halted ANC Provincial Conference
The unfolding drama began when acting Judge Bolani Metuthe in the Eastern Cape High Court on Thursday issued an order interdicting and restraining the ANC Provincial Conference from proceeding.
What followed, according to the applicants, was defiance instead of compliance. Within moments of the order being granted, they claim in court papers, senior ANC leaders chose to publicly undermine the court order.
ANC leaders chose to publicly undermine High Court order
“Ms Mmamoloko Kubayi (convenor of ANC NEC deployees in the province) was interviewed by a news broadcaster (SABC News), and she stated that the conference that this Honourable Court had interdicted in terms of paragraph 3.2, read with paragraph 4, of the order would go ahead notwithstanding the clear terms of the order,” reads the contempt of court application scheduled to be heard on Saturday.
“The applicants’ attorneys sent a letter to the respondents’ attorneys demanding an undertaking that the respondents would comply with the terms of the Order. They asked that the undertaking be given by 15h00 on 26 March 2026.
“Neither the respondents nor their attorneys gave the undertaking. Instead, certain respondents persisted in their position that they would proceed with the conference notwithstanding the order.”
‘A criminal act of contempt’
The applicants lawyers, headed by Advocate Dali Mpofu, have recorded the gravity of this development, describing the conduct of the ANC leadership’s pronouncement as incitement to contempt of court and a criminal act of contempt.
At that moment, the issue ceased to be about a conference. It became about whether the authority of the High Court could be openly disregarded by those in power.
The tone quickly changed
The Sheriff of the Court has since served summons on the respondents, including Fikile Mbalula, Kubayi, Provincial Chairperson Oscar Mabuyane, the rest of the NEC deployees and the entire PEC, placing them squarely within the jurisdiction of the court. It was only after this legal escalation that the first signs of retreat began to emerge.
The tone shifted abruptly at an urgent PEC meeting convened at 11h00 on Friday morning, lasting around 35 minutes.
An hour later, they convened a media briefing, communicating the decision to suspend the conference, pending the leave to appeal the interim interdict order.
Reputational and institutional damage
Mbalula also dispatched a letter in the early afternoon to ANC provincial officials, which Sunday World has seen.
“Following the order issued by the Eastern Cape High Court on 26 March 2026, and after due consideration, consultation, and review of the prevailing legal and organisational circumstances, the Office of the Secretary General has resolved to direct that the Eastern Cape Provincial Conference, which was scheduled to be officially opened on 27 March 2026, shall not convene at this time,” wrote Mbalula.
“This decision is taken in order to ensure full organisational discipline, legal prudence, and fidelity to the constitutional and governance obligations of the African National Congress, while safeguarding the integrity, credibility, and sustainability of the Provincial Conference process. Accordingly, the conference is hereby directed to be held in abeyance until further notice.”
What cannot be overlooked is the reputational and institutional damage now inflicted. The conduct of high-ranking ANC leaders has either exposed internal organisational failure or brought the African National Congress into serious disrepute.
A major constitutional rupture?
More gravely, the dual actions and conduct over a week have shown the country that compliance with a High Court order is negotiable when politically inconvenient.
The million-dollar question is whether there was willful defiance of a binding court order, which signals a major constitutional rupture.
A constitutional democracy does not collapse in a single dramatic moment. It erodes through tolerated defiance, through silence, and through the gradual normalisation of the idea that the law can be negotiated. The contempt application itself makes this danger explicit, warning that such conduct threatens the credibility of the court, the judiciary, and the rule of law. That is the danger South Africa now confronts.
Once that precedent is set, the damage does not remain within a political party, it spreads across institutions, across governance, and across the Republic itself. This has now gone beyond the ANC and whether the rule of law still holds, or whether it is now being tested by those who were sworn to protect it. But all that may be academic if the ANC’s appeal succeeds.
