On 5 April, the Speaker refused, arguing that neither the Constitution nor the Rules of the National Assembly empowered her to order such a voting procedure in a motion of no confidence.

[2] In response, the UDM applied for direct access to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where it sought judicial review of the Speaker's decision.

The reason for this is section 57(1) of the Constitution, which grants the National Assembly the latitude to determine its own internal arrangements and rules "with due regard to representative and participatory democracy, accountability, transparency and public involvement".

In the rest of its judgment, the court reflected on the purpose of motions of no confidence, which it construed as the "ultimate" means available to Parliament for exerting accountability over the executive.

Given this purpose of accountability, the Speaker's choice among voting methods would be situation-dependent but should rationally include consideration inter alia of the competing imperatives of facilitating openness and transparency, on the one hand, and allowing Members of Parliament to exercise their vote "in accordance with [their] conscience, without undue influence, intimidation, or fear of disapproval", on the other hand.