Senior judges candidates for panel on public protector evidence

SIYABONGA MKHWANAZI siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za

SENIOR judges have emerged as potential candidates to serve on a three-member independent panel to oversee the evidence against Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.

The panel would have to report to Speaker Thandi Modise within 30 days after its appointment.

The DA and Cope yesterday announced three senior judges to be considered as members of the panel that would decide whether there was prima facie evidence against Mkhwebane. This would then lead to a process of the appointment of an inquiry into her fitness for office.

DA chief whip Natasha Mazzone said they have nominated Judge Robert Nugent and Judge Jeanette Traverso to sit on the independent panel.

Cope spokesperson Dennis Bloem said they have nominated Judge President of the North Gauteng High Court Dunstan Mlambo.

Mazzone said they believe both Nugent and Traverso are fit and proper persons to serve on the panel.

She said despite Mkhwebane launching her court application to block the process of Parliament to remove her they would continue.

She said the public protector has a case to answer in Parliament.

“Mkhwebane’s assertion that the DA has not been objective on her performance is untrue. Our assessment of her performance has been based entirely on her work and conduct throughout her tenure as Public Protector. Mkhwebane has staggered from blunder to blunder and has continuously demonstrated that she is neither fit nor proper to occupy the office of Public Protector,” she said.

“If Mkhwebane spent as much energy on conducting her work independently and practising the law, as she does evading accountability, then she wouldn’t have been in this position. The DA will not back down from this motion against Mkhwebane and is of the belief that she has a case to answer for,” added Mazzone.

Speaker Thandi Modise had wanted all the parties to submit the names of candidates to serve on the panel by yesterday.

Modise also confirmed in the week that they have been served with papers by Mkhwebane’s lawyers.

The public protector is challenging the validity of the process saying it was unconstitutional and unfair.

But Modise has insisted that the process was fair and within the boundaries of the law and the Constitution.

Parliament drafted new rules to remove the public protector or any head of a Chapter 9 institution last year.

The rules were approved by the Chamber in December, and immediately after that the DA submitted a motion to the Speaker for the removal of the public protector.

The DA has over the past two years been trying to table a motion against Mkhwebane without success.

On two previous occasions the motion collapsed.