The Constitutional Court unanimously dismissed an application by businessman Hugh Glenister, who challenged Cabinet's decision to introduce draft legislation that would disband the Scorpions.

In December 2007, in the aftermath of a series of high-profile investigations into politicians, South Africa's governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), passed a policy resolution under which its 52nd National Conference held that the Scorpions should be disbanded and incorporated into the South African Police Service (SAPS).

[1] In February 2008, the Minister of Safety and Security, Charles Nqakula, announced that the government would seek to implement the ANC resolution.

[4][5][6] However, because the ANC had won a supermajority in the 2004 general election, opposition parties had little legislative recourse to oppose the amendments in the Parliament of South Africa.

In March 2008, Hugh Glenister, a retired businessman, approached the High Court of South Africa on an urgent basis, seeking to challenge the government's policy.

[11] Of the political parties who had joined the High Court action as amici curiae, only the UDM appeared in the Constitutional Court to support Glenister's application; however, the Centre for Constitutional Rights, a unit of the F. W. de Klerk Foundation, was newly admitted as amicus curiae and broadly supported the arguments of Glenister and the UDM.

Moreover, the UDM argued that Cabinet's decision to initiate the legislation, insofar as it emanated directly from a party-political resolution, amounted to an abdication of constitutional responsibility and therefore stood to be overturned as a violation of the principle of legality.

The court concluded that this test had not been met in the case of the disputed legislation, because the applicant had not established that material and irreversible harm would result in the absence of intervention.