NPA’s Abrahams is like His Master’s Voice
The letter from Malose S Monene of the Polokwane Bar (“NPA has right to appeal”, June 3) deserves a brief reply. It needs to be noted that the national director of public prosecutions, Shaun Abrahams, whom Monene stoutly defends, has no dog in the fight between the Democratic Alliance and the president over the reinstatement of the 783 charges against the latter.
An acting predecessor of his predecessor’s predecessor made the decision not to prosecute; Abrahams has let it be known that he had no part in the April 2009 decision of Mokotedi Mpshe to drop the charges. Mpshe, very wisely, abides by the decision of the full Bench of the high court, which, unsurprisingly, concluded it was irrational not to prosecute in circumstances in which the corruptor (Schabir Shaik) was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of all of the higher courts in the land, of corrupting the president.
Abrahams’s constitutional duty to exercise his functions “without fear, favour or prejudice” is not served by taking sides in this dispute, which he has inherited, and from which he should distance himself by simply abiding by the decisions of the courts in applications for leave to appeal.
By siding with the person who appointed him, he puts himself in an untenable position if the full Bench’s decision withstands all appeal procedures. How then will he deal with the docket in an even-handed fashion, without fear of the powerful, without favour to the friendly and without prejudice to the public interest?
Will he refuse to prosecute afresh? Will he throw the case by putting an inexperienced junior prosecutor on it? Abrahams ought to abandon the application for leave to appeal and leave it to the president to make such arguments against the full Bench’s decision as can reasonably be advanced in the future of the review.
This is the only proper way for Abrahams to serve institutional independence. At present, he is in danger of taking the role of the dog in the classic “His Master’s Voice” advertisement. —