The latest Eastern Cape High Court judgment delivered on Thursday has gone beyond being just a legal defeat to be a devastating political indictment of the judgment, discipline and constitutional stewardship exercised under secretary-general Fikile Mbalula, who is the respondent. The operative order is blunt:“The two applications for leave to appeal (by the ANC and the PTT respectively) are dismissed with costs.” That observation by a judge of the high court should alarm every disciplined member of the ANC. It turned principally on whether the ANC complied with its own constitution, which it did not according to the court. The court recorded that the PEC had never been dissolved and that both the ANC and PTT initially maintained this position.