President Cyril Ramaphosa appears to be throwing his weight behind ministers Bathabile Dlamini and Malusi Gigaba‚ opposing an application by the DA that he fire them.

The president told the high court in a notice filed on Tuesday that he intended opposing the DA’s case which was aimed at trying to force his hand to sack the pair.

The official opposition went to court for a declaratory order that would declare the appointment of Dlamini‚ as the minister of women in the presidency‚ and Malusi Gigaba as home affairs minister‚ in February this year in Ramaphosa’s first cabinet reshuffle as "unlawful‚ unconstitutional and invalid".

The DA wants the court to declare Gigaba’s appointment as inconsistent with his constitutional obligations.

The case has been laid down to be heard on March 11 2019 and Ramaphosa will have to explain to the court before then why he opposes the action.

Both Dlamini and Gigaba have been found to have lied under oath.

Ramaphosa is under further pressure to take action against Gigaba after the public protector‚ Busisiwe Mkhwebane‚ found that he violated the executive ethics code‚ the constitution and parliament’s code of conduct when he lied under oath.

The constitutional court last week dismissed Gigaba’s application for leave to appeal against a lower court ruling that he lied to the court in the Fireblade case.

In September‚ the Constitutional Court found that Dlamini had tried to mislead the court in the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) case.