Cape Town - Deputy National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba and two senior colleagues have a fortnight to respond to an application to have them struck from the roll of advocates, the General Council of the Bar of South Africa said on Tuesday.
Papers were served on Jiba, Lawrence Mwrebi, the head of the NPA’s specialised commercial crimes unit, and North Gauteng director of public prosecutions Sibongile Mzinyathi late last week, bar council chairman Jeremy Muller SC said.
“They now have ten working days or two weeks to indicate whether they will oppose the application, which we suppose they will do,” he said.
“They then have a further period of three weeks to file answering affidavits, but the timetable can slip as collegiality is displayed if somebody proffers a sound excuse for a delay.”
In the founding affidavit, Muller said the application was motivated by their conduct in the so-called spy tapes case, the decision to drop charges against suspended crime intelligence head Richard Mdluli and the failed attempt to prosecute the head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal Johan Booysen.
By bringing the application, the bar council was acceding to a request from embattled National Director of Public Prosecutions Mxolisi Nxasana, who is facing an inquiry into his fitness to hold office and has found himself at odds with Jiba repeatedly.
“The request from the NDPP arises from the conduct of all three members of the national directorate of public prosecutions as deponents to affidavits in several recent high court applications,” the bar council said.
“Trenchant criticism has been levelled at all three individuals in judgments of the high courts and Supreme Court of Appeal.”
Judge Trevor Gorven ruled in the Durban High Court that Jiba’s decision to bring charges of racketeering and defeating the ends of justice against Booysen was spurious, saying the state’s case did not meet minimum requirements.
The SCA also criticised Jiba in the spy tapes case brought by the Democratic Alliance against President Jacob Zuma, with Judge Mahomed Navsa ruled that her handling of the litigation was “not worthy of the office of the NDPP or National Directorate of Public Prosecutions”.
In Freedom Under Law’s application for review of the decision to withdraw fraud and corruption charges against Mdluli, the court found that part of Mwrebi’s statement was probably invented.
Muller said findings such as these obliged the bar council to accede to Nxasana’s request.
The application was made in terms of section 7 of the Admission of Advocates Act and if successful, it will see the three NPA staff effectively disqualified from continuing in their posts as by law since the incumbents have to hold the right to appear in court as an advocate or attorney.
Jiba is caught in another controversy relating to the failed bid to charge Booysen. Last week, Nxasana told media the police served a summons for her to appear on fraud and perjury later in April on him after they tried in vain to locate her.
The NPA could not be immediately reached for comment on Tuesday.
ANA