Latest news with #Executive
The South African
6 hours ago
- Politics
- The South African
Cyril Ramaphosa vs John Steenhuisen: Who's RIGHT over Andrew Whitfield axing?
President Cyril Ramaphosa has spoken out following his decision to remove Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, Andrew Whitfield, from his position. Whitfield's removal – which was done in terms of section 93 (1) of the Constitution – was announced on Thursday. In a statement on Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa said although it was not common practice for the President of the Republic of South Africa to provide reasons for either appointment or dismissals; 'several unfortunate statements and outright distortions by a number of people' have made it necessary to do so. 'Mr Whitfield was removed as a Deputy Minister because he undertook an international visit without the permission of the President. His travel to the United States was a clear violation of the rules and established practices governing the conduct of Members of the Executive. 'This requirement is known to all Ministers and Deputy Ministers. These rules and established practices were expressly communicated to all members of the Executive during the induction sessions at the commencement of the 7th administration,' he said. The President said the rules and practices 'were repeated in Cabinet in March this year by me as President'. 'All international travel by members of the executive must always be undertaken with the express permission of the President. This practice is rigorously observed and adhered to by all members of the Executive. However, Mr Whitfield deliberately chose to violate this rule and practice,' President Ramaphosa said. The President confirmed that prior to Whitfield's removal, he spoke to Democratic Alliance (DA) and fellow Government of National Unity (GNU) party leader, John Steenhuisen about his removal and 'I expect him to present to me for approval a replacement for Mr Whitfield from his party as the DA is entitled to a Deputy Minister as agreed'. 'In that discussion, Mr Steenhuisen informed me that Mr Whitfield had been expecting that he may be dismissed on the grounds that he had undertaken an international trip without the President's permission. 'This expectation, along with a perfunctory letter of apology that Mr Whitfield wrote to me following his travel to the USA without the required permission, indicated that he was aware that his actions had violated the rules and established practices governing the conduct of Members of the Executive,' he said. The President emphasised that previous Presidents had undertaken to remove ministers and deputy ministers before. 'During my discussion with Mr Steenhuisen, he asked me if there was precedent for the action that I intended to take in relation to Mr Whitfield. I informed him that there was indeed prior precedent. 'I told him that in 1995, President Nelson Mandela dismissed the late Deputy Minister Madikizela-Mandela and that in 2007 President Thabo Mbeki dismissed then Deputy Minister Nosizwe Madlala-Routledge on the grounds of undertaking international travel without permission. 'Given all these circumstances, there is consequently no reasonable grounds for Mr Steenhuisen and the Democratic Alliance to issue ultimatums and threats when the President exercises his constitutional prerogative and responsibility. Nor are there any grounds to try link this with matters that have no bearing on the conduct of the former Deputy Minister,' he said. The President emphasised that there is 'no basis' to suggest that the former Deputy Minister's removal is 'related to any other reason than his failure to receive permission to travel and adhere to the rules and established practices expected of members of the Executive'. 'While Mr Steenhuisen asked that he be allowed to brief the Democratic Alliance Federal Executive prior to the removal letter being delivered to Mr Whitfield, this would have had no bearing on my decision. It is the responsibility and the prerogative of the President to determine the timing and manner of the appointment and removal of Members of the Executive. 'I am amazed at Mr Steenhuisen's intemperate reaction to the removal of Mr Whitfield. He knows very well that the blatant disregard of the rules and practices that govern the international travel of members of the executive is a serious violation that should not be permitted,' President Ramaphosa said. The President reminded that it remains the Constitutional prerogative of the President to appoint or remove Ministers and Deputy Ministers. 'It is unprecedented in the history of our democracy that the exercise by the President of his constitutional prerogative and responsibility with respect to a clear violation of rules and established practices governing the conduct of Members of the Executive has met with such irresponsible and unjustifiable threats and ultimatums from a member of the executive. 'Let it be clear that the President shall not yield to threats and ultimatums, especially coming from members of the Executive that he has the prerogative to appoint in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa,' President Cyril Ramaphosa said. Let us know by leaving a comment below, or send a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1 Subscribe to The South African website's newsletters and follow us on WhatsApp, Facebook, X and Bluesky for the latest news.
Politico
12 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
Justices' nerves fray in Supreme Court's final stretch
The Supreme Court's nine justices often like to tout their camaraderie, hoping to dispel public perceptions that they are locked into warring ideological camps. But the final rulings of the current term — issued from the bench during a tense 90-minute court session Friday — revealed some acrimonious, even acidic, exchanges. Most of the rhetorical clashes pitted the court's conservative and liberal wings against each other in politically polarized cases. But not all of the spats fell squarely along ideological lines. On the whole, they paint a picture of nine people who are deeply divided over the law and the role of the courts — and who also may just not like each other very much. The most acerbic feud Friday came in the biggest ruling of the year: the justices' 6-3 decision granting the Trump administration's bid to rein in the power of individual district court judges to block federal government policies nationwide. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the court's entire conservative supermajority, responded sharply to a pair of dissents, one written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the other written by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. But Barrett reserved her most pointed barbs for Jackson. Barrett, a Trump appointee and the second-most-junior justice, accused Jackson, a Biden appointee and the court's most junior member, of mounting 'a startling line of attack' not 'tethered … to any doctrine whatsoever.' According to Barrett, Jackson was promoting 'a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush,' and she was skipping over legal issues she considers 'boring.' 'We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,' wrote Barrett. 'We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.' Well, maybe not 'only' that. While insisting she wouldn't 'dwell' on Jackson's arguments, Barrett wound up devoting nearly 900 words to them, capping the passage off with another zinger suggesting hypocrisy on Jackson's part. 'Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition: 'Everyone, from the President on down, is bound by law,'' Barrett wrote. 'That goes for judges too.' For her part, Jackson accused Barrett and the other conservatives of an obsession with 'impotent English tribunals' and of blessing a 'zone of lawlessness.' 'What the majority has done is allow the Executive to nullify the statutory and constitutional rights of the uncounseled, the underresourced, and the unwary, by prohibiting the lower courts from ordering the Executive to follow the law across the board,' Jackson declared. Although 42 percent of the court's opinions this term were unanimous, this week's decisions continued the pattern of liberals often finding themselves on the losing end of 6-3 rulings in the hardest-fought and most impactful cases. So, perhaps it's no surprise that the liberal justices are the ones to often paint the court's decisions in grave, even apocalyptic, terms. The court's 6-3 decision that public-school parents must be allowed to pull their children out of lessons involving LGBTQ-themed books produced a fiery dissent from Sotomayor. She predicted a 'nightmare' for school as parents choose to pull their kids out of lessons they disapprove of on topics ranging from evolution to the role of women in society to vaccines. The ensuing 'chaos' and self-censorship by schools threatens to end American public education as we know it, she said. 'Today's ruling threatens the very essence of public education,' Sotomayor wrote. 'The reverberations of the Court's error will be felt, I fear, for generations.' While the liberal justices more often found themselves on the losing side than the conservatives, some members of the court's right flank also found occasion to voice grave concerns about select rulings. Consider a decision issued Friday involving an FCC fund that supports broadband access in rural areas. It's not exactly a hot culture-war issue. And a mixed coalition of three conservatives and three liberals joined together to uphold the fund. But Justice Neil Gorsuch, animated by the case's implications for the balance of power between Congress and federal agencies, filed a lengthy dissent that accused the majority of embarking on a judicial 'misadventure' and deploying 'ludicrously hypothetical' reasoning. The majority, he wrote, 'defies the Constitution's command' that power be divided among the branches. A day earlier, Gorsuch had exchanged sharp words with Jackson — but this time, he was in the majority. Jackson, in an opinion joined by the court's other two liberals, suggested the conservative majority's decision allowing South Carolina to exclude Planned Parenthood from the Medicaid program there amounted to a continuation of the long campaign by racists and segregationists in the South to resist federal civil rights laws enacted in the wake of the Civil War. 'A century and a half later, the project of stymying one of the country's great civil rights laws continues,' Jackson wrote. Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, dismissed the inflammatory claim out of hand, calling it 'extravagant.' Jackson has also used stark language in dissents from rulings on the court's emergency docket. In April, she predicted 'devastation' from the Trump administration suspension of education grants and called the court's decision to allow the cuts to proceed 'in equal parts unprincipled and unfortunate.' One of the major surprises Friday was the court's decision to pass up issuing any opinion in the term's big redistricting case. It involved the Louisiana legislature's creation of a second majority-Black congressional district after courts ordered the legislature to do so to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Although the justices heard the case in March, they ordered that the case be reargued, likely this fall. Justice Clarence Thomas, writing alone, scolded his colleagues for copping out despite a full round of legal briefing and 80 minutes of oral arguments on the issue. 'The Court today punts without explanation,' Thomas complained. The way to resolve the Louisiana case 'should be straightforward,' the court's longest-serving justice said. Then he stepped up his rhetoric another notch, declaring that the court had not only failed to explain its action but that it defied any logic whatsoever. 'The Court … inexplicably schedules these cases for reargument,' Thomas griped. The consternation displayed by the justices this week came as one of their former colleagues, retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, issued an impassioned warning that 'hostile, fractious discourse' was tearing at the fabric of American democracy. To be sure, there are no outward signs the acrimony at the high court has reached the levels it did in 2022, following POLITICO's publication of a draft of the court's not-yet-released opinion overturning the federal constitutional right to an abortion. Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, said then that trust at the court was 'gone forever.' And after that bombshell ruling was officially published, Justice Elena Kagan accused the court of making political decisions. The Obama appointee said only 'time will tell' if the justices could again find 'common ground.' While the justices' disagreement in the major cases often seemed stark this week, there were occasional efforts to bridge the divide. Playing a role he often adopts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh seemed eager to downplay the practical significance of the court's ruling barring nationwide injunctions in most instances. Kavanaugh said the district court injunctions at issue are rarely 'the last word' in high-profile fights over executive power. Those battles ultimately end up at the Supreme Court, he argued, so whether a district court's injunction is enforced nationwide or not matters less than what the justices decide on the slew of emergency applications landing on their so-called shadow docket. 'When a stay or injunction application arrives here, this Court should not and cannot hide in the tall grass,' wrote Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee. During speaking appearances last month, Chief Justice John Roberts insisted the justices aren't at each other's throats, despite the tone of some of the opinions that come out as the court winds down its work for the term. 'I'm sure people listening to the news or reading our decisions, particularly decisions that come out in May and June, maybe think, 'Boy, those people really must hate each other. They must be at hammer and tong the whole time,'' the chief justice told an audience in Buffalo. However, Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, also said the court's summer recess is a welcome respite not only from work, but from colleagues. 'That break is critical to maintaining a level of balance,' he said. Roberts, who traditionally teaches a legal course overseas during the summer and lounges at his vacation home in Maine, has one more official gig before he heads out. He's scheduled to speak Saturday morning to a judicial conference in North Carolina, where he'll have a chance to offer his latest thoughts on whether his colleagues are grating on each other or getting along.
CNA
17 hours ago
- Automotive
- CNA
Story on Tesla hiring Cruise AI executive withdrawn
A story saying Telsa had hired a former Cruise AI executive as the automaker's AI director has been withdrawn. Reuters picked up the story from the news website Electrek. There will be no substitute. STORY_NUMBER: L4N3SU0YP STORY_DATE: 27/06/2025
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jackson warns of ‘existential threat to law' posed by court's nationwide injunctions ruling
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issued a scathing dissent in response to the Supreme Court's majority opinion on Friday that limited federal judges' ability to temporarily pause President Donald Trump's executive orders nationwide. The 6-3 decision, authored by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett, allows the president to implement his order to end automatic birthright citizenship as litigation on the matter continues. As The New York Times reported, 'the practice of giving citizenship automatically to the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants and some temporary residents and visitors would end in the 28 states that have not challenged the order.' The decision is expected to have far-reaching impacts on other aspects of the president's agenda, as he stated later Friday that his administration 'can now promptly file to proceed' with policies that had been subject to nationwide injunctions. Jackson, the newest member of the court, joined fellow Democratic-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a dissent that was also joined by Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee. But Jackson wrote a separate dissent as well, in which she warned that the court's 'decision to permit the Executive to violate the Constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an existential threat to the rule of law.' She continued: It is important to recognize that the Executive's bid to vanquish so-called 'universal injunctions' is, at bottom, a request for this Court's permission to engage in unlawful behavior. When the Government says 'do not allow the lower courts to enjoin executive action universally as a remedy for unconstitutional conduct,' what it is actually saying is that the Executive wants to continue doing something that a court has determined violates the Constitution—please allow this. That is some solicitation. With its ruling today, the majority largely grants the Government's wish. But, in my view, if this country is going to persist as a Nation of laws and not men, the Judiciary has no choice but to deny it. Scroll to Page 98 below to read Jackson's full dissent, or click here. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Barrett, Jackson spar in birthright citizenship case opinions
Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson forcefully butted heads in dueling opinions Friday regarding President Trump's executive order narrowing birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court's majority opinion, penned by Barrett and joined by the high court's other five conservative justices, lets Trump's order go into effect for now in some parts of the country, by curtailing judges' ability to issue universal injunctions. Jackson joined her fellow liberal justices in a fiery, joint dissent but further claimed in a solo dissent that the court's decision marked an 'existential threat to the rule of law.' The Trump administration's bid to 'vanquish' universal injunctions amounts to a request for the high court's permission to 'engage in unlawful behavior,' Jackson said, implying that the majority gave Trump just that. 'It gives the Executive the go-ahead to sometimes wield the kind of unchecked, arbitrary power the Founders crafted our Constitution to eradicate,' she wrote. At another point, Jackson suggested that the high court's decision Friday marked the start of a slippery slope toward a nation not powered by the people nor governed by the Constitution. 'It is not difficult to predict how this all ends,' she said. 'Eventually, executive power will become completely uncontainable, and our beloved constitutional Republic will be no more.' Barrett sharply rebuked Jackson's rhetoric as a 'startling line of attack' and said she would not dwell on her 'extreme' argument, claiming it is at odds with centuries of precedent and the Constitution itself. 'We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,' Barrett wrote. 'No one disputes that the Executive has a duty to follow the law. But the Judiciary does not have unbridled authority to enforce this obligation—in fact, sometimes the law prohibits the Judiciary from doing so.' She continued to suggest that Jackson should 'heed her own admonition.' ''[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law,'' Barrett wrote, quoting Jackson. 'That goes for judges too.' The high court's decision revokes a key tool plaintiffs have used to beat back Trump's agenda in dozens of lawsuits, finding that three federal district judges overstepped in issuing universal injunctions against Trump's birthright citizenship order, which restricts such citizenship for children born on U.S. soil if at least one parent does not have permanent legal status. The justices left for another day the question of whether the restrictions are constitutional. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
