Illustrative image | Bed flying over fluffy clouds at night. (iStock) | DA leader John Steenhuisen. (Photo: Stefan Wermuth / Bloomberg via Getty Images) | Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). (Photo: Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) 
It’s been widely assumed, I suspect, that the DA’s court case against the adoption of the fiscal framework is essentially an act of strategic political gamesmanship in its arm-wrestling with the ANC over the Government of National Unity (GNU). Or it’s an act of spite against what the DA sees as the ANC’s gamesmanship and arm-wrestling over the GNU.
In either case, it’s not really real. It will just be dismissed, and that will be that, and then we can calm down to an ordinary panic.
This is definitely the way the ANC sees it, and perhaps some political commentators too. The ANC, I imagine, regards the mere decision of the DA to go to court as an act of malice after it was outmanoeuvred on the passing of the fiscal framework, and it has insisted the DA should scrap the case before the GNU reset can happen.
But there are complications here.
First problem
The first problem is that the EFF has now joined the DA’s case. In any other world at any other time, it would seem weird for parties so opposed to be jointly fighting a court case. I know the EFF and the DA have cooperated before, but now the DA is notionally part of the government. And it’s taking the government to court. And a party outside the government is joining them in that action. It all seems a bit insane.
The second problem is that there is a lot more to the case than I would guess most people think.
The DA is bringing its case on two grounds.
The first ground is procedural, and argues that the two parliamentary finance committees did not formally adopt the fiscal framework that was sent to Parliament and eventually voted through. The resolutions adopted on 2 April 2025, by both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces to accept the 2025 fiscal framework should be “declared invalid and set aside, and the fiscal framework remitted to the Committees for reconsideration”, the court application reads.
In terms of the Money Bills Amendment Procedure and Related Matters Act, 2009, the finance committee must submit a report within 16 days after the tabling of the national Budget. More importantly, section 8(4) of the same Act says: “The report must include a clear statement accepting or amending the fiscal framework and revenue proposals.”
The DA claims the committee simply considered the framework clause by clause without a final version that set out a clear statement accepting or amending the fiscal framework and revenue proposals. The fiscal framework was never put to the finance committee for final adoption, and it did not contain a clear statement to accept or amend the fiscal framework, as required by law, reads the DA’s application.
Easy to fix
So you would think, okay, that may be or may not be so. But even if the DA wins on that point, it’s pretty easy to fix: you just send it back to the finance committee, vote on it and push forward.
The problem is that there is more: The DA is also arguing, but not on an urgent basis, that the finance minister’s authority under section 7(4) of the VAT Act unconstitutionally permits the executive to raise taxes without parliamentary approval.
This is a separation of powers issue, and the DA is essentially arguing that the VAT Act allows the minister to legislate by announcement. If the minister wants to increase VAT, then increasing the tax has to be specifically part of the fiscal framework, the DA’s legal papers suggest. As it stands, the fiscal framework only commits the government to examine ways it might avoid raising VAT, but does not say specifically whether the government will raise VAT or not.
The EFF’s application agrees with all of these arguments. It claims the fiscal framework did not include a “clear statement accepting or amending the fiscal framework” and the finance committee never considered, deliberated or voted on whether it accepted or amended the fiscal framework.
In the ANC’s negotiations with Bosa and ActionSA, the finance committee outside of the DA and some other parties eventually came up with this formulation: “The committee recommends that the alternative revenue proposals and expenditure savings to balance the R28-billion shortfall — which must effectively suspend the proposed increases — be finalised and submitted to the National Treasury to process and submit to the committee within 30 days for consideration and adoption of this report by the House.”
However, the legislation, the EFF argues, doesn’t allow the committee to make a recommendation; it simply envisages adoption of the fiscal framework or amendments to it. Both parties have asked the court to shelve the VAT increase until the constitutional issue is resolved — and that may take some time.
All in all, the legal case against the VAT increase has more legal heft than it might appear from the political arguments outside the court process. DM