Floyd Brink is the latest member of the revolving door of City of Johannesburg leaders as coalition chaos reigns over the crumbling metro.

The Johannesburg High Court has given the city two weeks to appoint an acting city manager after it found Brink's appointment was unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.

The city is now on the clock and, with the year drawing to a close, the country's economic hub may see a critical leadership role remain vacant.

Tuesday's judgment lays bare the abuse of processes in the council, which approved Brink's appointment in February after the Speaker, Colleen Makhubele, tabled an "urgent and exceptional" report on 22 February.

Matters before the council are usually processed by a committee and vetted for legality before being tabled for a sitting, but Makhubele may allow urgent reports to be tabled.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) used this provision as its basis for bringing the matter to court in May.

Two resolutions followed Makhubele's action in the council. The first was that the city cancelled an advertisement for City manager after the council voted on 29 August 2022 to re-advertise the position after the first recruitment had not been successful. The second resolution was that the executive mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, applied corrective measures on Brink's recruitment process "as a matter of urgency".

The corrective measures came after Brink, on 16 November 2022, filed a complaint to the council, contending that his appointment as city manager had been "unlawfully obstructed by various role-players".

Brink was one of two candidates who applied to the first advertisement for the post. The first candidate found other employment, and the second – Brink, had not passed the vetting process.

Before Brink, Johannesburg had been without a city manager from 28 February 2021 after Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni and then-mayor Geoffrey Makhubo "agreed to a mutual termination of employment".

Unofficially, city employees said he was "frog-marched" from the building. 

Makhubo was the last stable mayor in Johannesburg, serving from December 2019 until his death in July 2021 from Covid-19. Gwamanda is the sixth mayor to serve since then. 

In April 2022, Brink, then acting city manager, was placed on special leave after allegations that he disregarded the procurement processes in the R320-million procurement of portable handheld communication devices and CCTV equipment for the public safety department. 

The city's internal corruption busting department, Group Forensics and Investigation Services (GFIS), commissioned law firm ENSafrica to investigate.

The ENSafrica report found Brink did not act when he discovered the multimillion-rand transaction had been pushed through without following due process. 

The Government of Local Unity (GLU), the name given to the city's African National Congress, Economic Freedom Fighters and Patriotic Alliance coalition, came into power after a motion of no confidence in the DA's mayor, Mpho Phalatse, in January.

The GLU appointed Brink as city manager in February.

In June, the council - with the GLU as the majority coalition - voted to defang GFIS because it was alleged that the former DA-led government was using the institution to spy on councillors.

Several cases involving council members and city leaders were dropped after the vote.

In September, the council voted to dismiss the charges against Brink relating to the R320-million procurement, calling it "false allegations that were manufactured".

The DA voted against dismissing the charges because the matter was still in court. 

On Tuesday, the court found that the two council resolutions voted in August 2022 to cancel the re-advertisement and hire Brink were unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid.

Acting High Court Judge Steven Budlender ordered that the respondents – the city, the council, the city manager, the mayor and the Speaker – pay the DA's costs.

In his judgment, Budlender said the decisions taken and the acts performed by Brink as city manager would not be invalid just because of the decision to find his appointment irregular.

The DA's Leah Knott said revoking all of Brink's actions would undo critical decisions, like the budget, which would have catastrophic implications.

Brink's decisions would, therefore, need to be taken up on a case-by-case basis.

Gwamanda said the city was studying the judgment and would advise on its reaction to the contents.

"We wish to reiterate our commitment to acting in the best interests of the residents of the city and its administration at all times. We shall not be deterred nor distracted, even in this instance.

"In our attempts to insulate administrative responsibility from political bigotry, and in line with our priority of good governance and stabilising the City of Johannesburg, we continue to expect and view these litigious actions with a dim view," he said.

Professor Alex van den Heever, of the University of Witwatersrand's School Of Governance, said the judgment raised "serious concerns about the manner in which the current coalition and Speaker conducted their affairs".

He said he believed he was speaking for many in arguing that the current coalition government was "clearly not fit for purpose".

"The process thrown out by the high court suggests that a flawed candidate was manipulated into the position of city manager, despite serious misgivings. The conduct of the current mayor, Speaker and the coalition government is clearly in question.

"The position of city manager should not be a political appointment, especially one with serious questions about their integrity. Only the best candidate should be appointed and one that is properly vetted. Unfortunately, given the implications of the judgment, the appointment of an acting city manager is also open to manipulation and would need to be closely watched."

The rules of the council are enshrined by the national legislation, which emanates from the Constitution.

This is not the first time the court has found against Makhubele.

On 25 October 2022, the Gauteng High Court reinstated Mpho Phalatse as mayor after it found that the procedures to remove her were unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid.

The unlawful procedures included Makhubele's decision, taken on 29 September 2022, to schedule an extraordinary meeting of the council for 30 September 2022, the decision to place a motion of no confidence in Phalatse as the mayor on the agenda for the extraordinary meeting on 30 September, and the decision taken by the council on 30 September to elect Dada Morero as the mayor.