DA to argue for Adv Jiba’s suspension 

01 February 2016

On Tuesday, 2 February 2016, the DA will argue before the Western Cape High Court that the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Adv Nomgcobo Jiba, should be suspended pending a disciplinary inquiry into her fitness to hold office. The DA will argue that the President’s failure to suspend Adv Jiba was unlawful and tainted by ulterior motives and bias. Accordingly the DA will ask the Court to do what the President would not and suspend Adv Jiba.

As argued in the DA’s heads of argument, Adv Jiba managed to incur the criticism of twelve judges, on four benches, in three different matters during her short stint as Acting NDPP. She stands accused of lying to the court, failing to comply with court orders, ignoring deadlines, failing to exercise an independent mind, and “shielding irrational and illegal actions from judicial scrutiny”. The General Bar Council is concurrently but in a separate application seeking her disbarment as an advocate.

It was in light of these accusations that the NPA requested the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mike Masutha, and the President to suspend Adv Jiba. An independent commission under former Constitutional Court Justice, Zak Yacoob, found that Adv Jiba had been “rightly criticized” by the courts and that her conduct had caused great public concern that the NPA would not carry out their functions free of fear or favour.

Despite all of this, however, President Zuma failed to suspend her, ignoring the requests of the then sitting NDPP, Mxolisi Nxasana, and numerous stakeholders across civil society. Instead Adv Jiba was promoted and those who sought her suspension were purged from the NPA.

It is telling of course that the three cases in which Adv Jiba acted dishonestly concerned serious charges against the President and senior members of the SAPS aligned to the President. The cases were all extremely politically sensitive. They are exactly the types of cases in which an honest, independent NDPP is absolutely vital, and where the failure to exhibit those qualities undermines the integrity and the independence of the NPA as a whole. Yet in all three cases, Adv Jiba demonstrated that she lacked the basic integrity, independence, diligence and conscientiousness to perform the functions of the NDPP, or a DNDPP.

The DA will not allow the President’s inaction to topple the rule of law or the integrity of the South African criminal justice system. The DA trusts the courts will do what the President should have done in the first place.

Statement issued by Adv Glynnis Breytenbach MP, DA Shadow Minister of Justice, 1 February 2016