{"id":685,"date":"2025-05-19T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/?p=685"},"modified":"2025-05-20T00:13:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T00:13:10","slug":"ramaphosa-says-decision-to-sign-nhi-bill-was-politically-sensitive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.vecimasupport.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/19\/ramaphosa-says-decision-to-sign-nhi-bill-was-politically-sensitive\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramaphosa says decision to sign NHI Bill was politically sensitive"},"content":{"rendered":"
President Cyril Ramaphosa has argued in papers filed to the Pretoria high court that its ruling compelling him to submit his record of decision on assenting to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act<\/a> was flawed on 10 counts.<\/p>\n He is appealing the court\u2019s order to hand over the record to the supreme court of appeal (SCA) but indicated that he would also appeal directly to the constitutional court by 27 May. Should the apex court grant him direct access, the president said he would not persist in his application to the SCA.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa argued that the high court made grave errors in law when, in a ruling handed down on 6 May in favour of the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF), it held that his decision was reviewable and ordered him to hand over the record within 10 calendar days.<\/p>\n He advanced 10 grounds of review, including that the court lacked jurisdiction in the matter and erred in finding that his decision to sign the NHI Bill into law was reviewable. <\/p>\n Because BHF alleged a failure by the president to fulfil his constitutional duty, Ramaphosa submitted, only the apex court could hear the matter because it alone has the power to determine whether that is so in terms of section 167(4)(e) of the Constitution.<\/p>\n His counsel had argued before the high court that the obligation imposed on the president in section 79 of the Constitution to assent to legislation was assigned only to himself, or an acting president in the case of his absence.<\/p>\n Therefore any breach of this obligation triggered the exclusive jurisdiction of the constitutional court.<\/p>\n They further argued that when deciding whether to assent to a law, the president was exercising a subjective discretion bestowed on him by section 79 of the Constitution. <\/p>\n It was up to him to decide how he went about reaching his decision and an attempt to review this decision in court had significant implications for the separation of powers.<\/p>\n Allowing a high court review would also mean that any person who was unhappy with his decision to sign a Bill into law and had enough money to launch litigation could embark on a courtroom \u201cfishing expedition\u201d to find a flaw in his reasoning.<\/p>\n In this instance, the president\u2019s lawyers argued, the BHF could not point to any reviewable lapse in the process he had followed, yet was trying to halt a legislative process designed to meet the healthcare needs of the whole country.<\/p>\n The BHF, which represents most private medical schemes in South Africa, had argued that Ramaphosa flouted his constitutional duty by failing to scrutinise the constitutionality of the NHI Bill.<\/p>\n