Thuli Madonsela has completely outfoxed Jacob Zuma. The report on state capture, signed during her last days in office as public protector, places President Zuma and his mates on the trapdoor of a gallows. To have starved her of budget and stalled her on time were to no avail.
Had the report made conclusive findings, they could have been subject to review. A protracted process of challenge through the courts could have been launched. Conclusion could have been frustrated for months, if not years, allowing Zuma the space to obfuscate and cling to his diminishing power, extending the leadership turmoils that have long bedevilled SA and its economy.
Instead, the obstacles to culmination have been sidestepped. By the report’s unchallengeable remedial action that a judicial inquiry be instituted, with deadlines stipulated and resources insisted, Madonsela’s meticulously-crafted detail has provided prima facie evidence of corruption that effectively defines the terms of reference for the inquiry.
It leaves no place to hide. For the public at large, although not for Zuma and his mates, it’s the preferable alternative to labyrinthine procedures more conventionally adopted by the public protector; where questions are asked and answered behind closed doors, where timelines can be strung out and findings contested as happened over Nkandla.
A judicial inquiry is an entirely different animal. While it isn’t axiomatic that all proceedings will necessarily be open for public access, the requirements of an open court similarly apply. The principle of seeing justice to be done is sacrosanct. Recall, for instance, the precedent of the judicial inquiry into Marikana.
This means that witnesses – those named in the state-capture report – must be called. They’ll have to produce documents subpoenaed. They’ll have to testify and be cross-examined under oath. They’ll be entitled to legal representation, as will the opposition political parties on the same logic that they’d been granted intervention rights by the North Gauteng High Court.
Every nook and cranny of the report now stands to be thoroughly explored, and all individuals identified in it can expect their day in court. Media coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial will look a sideshow by comparison. The court of public opinion will be in full cry.
Possible outcomes?
Zuma and his son will be stuffed. The Guptas will be stuffed. Cabinet ministers Des van Rooyen and Mosebenzi Zwane will be stuffed. Eskom chief executive Brian Molefe will be stuffed. The nuclear-build programme will be stuffed. And, unless it soon makes proactive changes, the ANC will be stuffed too.
All the while, lawyers will be hawk-eyed for bases of criminal charges and civil suits to follow.
Allan Greenblo is editorial director of Today’s Trustee (www.totrust.co.za), a quarterly magazine mainly for principal officers and trustees of retirement funds.
This article first appeared on BusinessLive.
