Protect the public from the public protector

Seldom has there been a legal judgment more damning of a public servant than the lashing handed down yesterday to Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane by three judges of the High Court in Johannesburg.

In tossing out Mkhwebane’s findings related to the “rogue unit” in the SA Revenue Service, Judges Selby Baqwa, Annali Basson and Leonie Windell recommended that Mkhwebane be investigated by the Legal Practices Council following what they called her “shockingly inappropriate and unwarranted” attack on Judge Sulet Potterill in a previous court appearance.

That referral raises the possibility of serious censure – or worse – against a person clearly acting outside the ethics of the legal profession.

The judgment contained a litany of barbs against Mkhwebane, including that her conduct in the case “falls far short of the high standards demanded of her office”, that she had been guilty of “blatant dishonesty as well as demonstrating a “total disregard of the values enshrined” in the constitution. The judges called Mkhwebane’s conduct “egregious”. The dictionary definition of that word is: “outstandingly bad; shocking”.

This judgment, along with the many others in which Mkhwebane has been chastised for her incompetence, brings into question, once again, her fitness to hold one of the most important offices in the land.

Yet, we believe the judgment is the product of judicial language and does not address the political elephant in the room. The judges say Mkhwebane’s report on the “rogue unit” is “ the product of a wholly irrational process, bereft of any sound legal or factual basis”.

We believe Mkhwebane has been anything but irrational in her systematic attempts to defend former president Jacob Zuma and his accomplices and to allow their capture of the state to continue. She knew exactly what she was doing as another accomplice.

The public needs to be protected from her.

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