National Director of Public Prosecution Mokotedi Mpshe must stand down from his post following the emergence of incontrovertible evidence that his statement giving reasons for dropping charges against Jacob Zuma was plagiarised from the judgment of a Hong Kong High Court (see here).  This implies the NPA never bothered to apply its mind to the evidence before it, and that, instead, the NPA had a conclusion in mind before it started and worked backwards to find a justification. When the NPA failed to find anything within South African law to overcome Judge Harms' statement that the motive behind a prosecution is irrelevant, it resorted to plagiarising an obscure ruling from a foreign court.

In addition, since the judgment was based on the common law of another country and, in any case, was overturned on appeal, the precedent established clearly has no force in South African law whatsoever. This is not, as Tlali Tlali says, an "innocent oversight", but instead materially affects the validity of the NPA's argument for dropping charges.

It goes without saying that these revelations have extremely serious implications for Adv Mpshe, the National Prosecuting Authority, and for the NPA's decision to drop charges against Jacob Zuma. We believe that Adv Mpshe must immediately apologise to the nation and resign. An impartial and transparent enquiry is needed into the NPA's behaviour. These revelations will also strengthen the grounds for the DA's review application.

Statement issued by Ian Davidson MP, Democratic Alliance chief whip, April 15 2009

Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter