Above and beyond the obligation to declare any personal or private financial or business interests, executive members will now have to disclose funds received for their internal party campaigns.

On Tuesday, the Constitutional Court upheld a Gauteng High Court judgment that found legislation in the Executive Ethics Code was unconstitutional and invalid as it did not require members of the executive to disclose "donations made to campaigns for their election to positions within political parties".

Handing down the unanimous judgment, Justice Steven Majiedt found the code "falls short of constitutional and statutory dictates of transparency, accountability, and openness".

He added the current legislation around disclosures of donations for internal party elections undermined the Ethics Act and the conflict of interests regime essential to promoting "transparency and [dealing] with the pervasive corruption bedevilling" the country.

Majiedt stressed that "the need for transparency in campaign donations must be understood against the backdrop of and the context of the pressing need to curb and strive towards eradicating corruption".

The case is likely to have a bearing on donations to the campaigns of politicians seeking positions in their parties, especially the African National Congress (ANC) leading up to its December elective conference.

The Constitutional Court judgment confirmed a ruling handed down by the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria in December last year.

It found the Executive Ethics Code, in its current state, was unconstitutional and invalid for not requiring members of the executive to disclose "donations made to campaigns for their election to positions within political parties".

The High Court gave President Cyril Ramaphosa a year to remedy the defects in the code, which the Constitutional Court also upheld on Tuesday.

The judgment is not retrospective, meaning donations made to Ramaphosa's "CR17" campaign for the ANC presidency will not have to be made public.

The case was brought by investigative journalism unit amaBhungane, as it sought confirmation of the High Court ruling.

The Constitutional Court heard amaBhungane's case in May.

The investigative news unit argued democracy "is diminished when unaccountable people and entities with unknowable resources bring extraordinary influence to bear on policy and the elected officials they have sponsored".

It also stressed when politicians knew they could operate without the scrutiny brought by an effective watchdog system, they might be more likely to take advantage of the spoils of public office at the expense of the public good.

amaBhungane took up the case after the High Court set aside Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane's CR17 report in 2020.

Mkhwebane found Ramaphosa in breach of the Executive Ethics Code for not disclosing a R500 000 donation to his campaign for the ANC presidency in 2017 which was received from former Bosasa chief executive Gavin Watson.

At the time, the court deemed that under the current prescripts of the code, Ramaphosa was not legally obligated to disclose the donations he received for internal party elections because he had not personally benefitted from them.

The outcome of the Ramaphosa case led to amaBhungane challenging the constitutionality of the Executive Ethics Code in a parallel process.