Cape Town - Suspended deputy national director of public prosecutions, Advocate Nomgcobo Jiba, may find it hard to convince the Mokgoro inquiry that she and advocate Lawrence Mwrebi were not acting outside their jurisdiction when they prosecuted former KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Johan Booysen and dropped murder charges against Richard Mdluli.
Jiba and Mrwebi were hauled before the hearing following a series of damning judgments against them which prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to appoint a commission of inquiry into those allegations in October last year.
The damning judgments related to the prosecution of Booysen and the dropping of murder charges against former Crime Intelligence head Mdluli.
Mdluli stood accused of having murdered the boyfriend of his ex-lover but the charges were mysteriously dropped - a decision that irked Judge John Murphy of the High Court in Joburg.
The first day of the hearings led by retired Constitutional Court Justice Yvonne Mokgoro into her fitness to hold office in the National Prosecuting Authority focused only on the work requirements of a national director of public prosecutions (DPP), and the deputy.
The acting director of public prosecutions, Silas Ramaite, outlined the respective roles of his office, the deputy director of public prosecutions as well as the roles of the different directors of public prosecutions in the nine provinces, including Gauteng. He said the DPP was only allowed to prosecute matters in its areas of jurisdiction - a submission that would later become a contentious matter against Jiba and Mrwebi.
One of the allegations against them was that they allowed a Gauteng DPP, Andrew Chauke, to prosecute Booysen for alleged crimes that were committed outside Gauteng’s jurisdiction.
Jiba has also dismissed newspaper reports over the weekend that she and advocate Lawrence Mrwebi had received monthly bribes of R100 000 and R10 000 respectively from Bosasa officials in exchange for their not being exposed to criminal prosecution.
Jiba offered to appear before the Zondo Commission to dispel damning allegations of bribery published in weekend newspapers on Sunday.
Jiba’s legal counsel, advocate Thabani Masuku, has asked the commission not to consider any of those reports in the proceedings. Masuku said his client would give a detailed response after reading the affidavit.
Evidence leader Nazreen Bawa confirmed that the commission was at the moment only dealing with allegations that emanated from negative court judgments against Jiba and Mrwebi. Bawa, however, said they had formally requested a copy of the affidavit from the secretary of the Zondo Commission.
The hearings continue.