<\/p>\n
Cape Town – As Parliament\u2019s Section 194 inquiry into suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane\u2019s fitness to hold office began its public hearings on July 11, committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi said it would all be over by the end of September. It would appear he was mistaken.<\/p>\n
As the inquiry wrapped up for the festive season on December 5, it was announced that the hearings would resume on January 30.<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen whether the new deadline of April 21, for the completion of the committee\u2019s work, will be met.<\/p>\n
Signs that the chairperson\u2019s September deadline would not be achieved came as early as the end of the first week of hearings.<\/p>\n
That was when Mkhwebane\u2019s advocate, Dali Mpofu SC, said: \u201cIf this process is going to be fair and cover the ground, it will not finish in September. There is vast ground to cover.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mpofu, who later in the proceedings would be accused by some committee members of delaying the process, said at the time that some court cases took up to four years to finalise.<\/p>\n This was despite Nazreen Bawa SC telling the committee during her opening address on the first day of sittings, that it was important to understand that the inquiry was not a court of law, nor a quasi-judicial process.<\/p>\n Bawa reminded the committee that the inquiry would be the nation\u2019s first impeachment process and that because the evidence leaders were not prosecutors appointed by the committee, they aimed to be neutral and fair.<\/p>\n In his opening address at the start of proceedings, Dyantyi said the process had only two possible outcomes.<\/p>\n \u201cEither we find evidence that exonerates the public protector or we might find evidence that leads to adverse findings.\u201d<\/p>\n The committee has sat 47 times, including for its own housekeeping meetings and the actual hearings.<\/p>\n Twenty witnesses have appeared before the committee including one, legal expert Hassen Ebrahim, who outlined the public protector\u2019s role as envisioned by the law.<\/p>\n Seventeen of the witnesses gave evidence against Mkhwebane with two testifying in her favour.<\/p>\n As for Mkhwebane herself, much of her time this year was spent either sitting at the inquiry in Cape Town or traversing courtrooms ranging from the Western Cape High Court to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, in her bid to stop the probe from continuing.<\/p>\n Her latest court appearance was in November when the Constitutional Court reserved judgment in the joint application by the DA and President Cyril Ramaphosa which sought to overturn a Western Cape High Court decision that declared her suspension invalid.<\/p>\n In a cross appeal bringing the National Assembly\u2019s Speaker and the Section 194 committee chairman into the matter, Mkhwebane also questioned the legality of Parliament\u2019s impeachment proceedings against her and whether the Constitutional Court had any jurisdiction.<\/p>\n The next witness expected to testify on Mkhwebane\u2019s behalf is Zambia\u2019s Public Protector Caroline Zulu-Sokoni.<\/p>\n mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za<\/p>\n Cape Argus<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cape Town – As Parliament\u2019s Section 194 inquiry into suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane\u2019s fitness to hold office began its public hearings on July 11, committee chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi said it would all be over by the end of September. It would appear he was mistaken. As the inquiry wrapped up for the festive season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1553,7789,13233,8612,5195,1082,12421],"class_list":{"0":"post-162038","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-politics","7":"tag-april","8":"tag-deadline","9":"tag-enquiry","10":"tag-finished","11":"tag-missed","12":"tag-mkhwebane","13":"tag-september"},"yoast_head":"\n