Pretoria - Judgment has been reserved in the matter between Public Protector (PP) Busisiwe Mkhwebane and minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, on his application to interdict the remedial action against him in the PP's SA Revenue Service (SARS) "rogue unit" report.
Mkhwebane and Gordhan battled it out at the North Gauteng High Court for the better part of Tuesday.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema attended the hearings with other members of the party's leadership after they had applied as the intervening party in support of Mkhwebane.
Meanwhile, EFF supporters camped outside waiting in anticipation to be addressed by Malema.
Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi who was representing the EFF, said the party was not defending Mkhwebane but rather defending the office she holds.
This is after Mkhwebane made adverse findings against Gordhan in relation to his role in the establishment of a so-called rogue spying unit at SARS.
This prompted Gordhan to lodge an urgent application to suspend and interdict the remedial orders by Mkhwebane, citing "improper motives" on her part.
Ngcukaitobi dismissed Gordhan's argument saying his interdict application was an act of resistance.
"A draconian interdict would not only interfere with an original constitutional power, it would set precedent for delaying future accountability by temporarily interdicting the PP's reports", he argued.
Mkhwebane's counsel, advocate Thabani Masuku launched a scathing argument against Gordhan's application telling the court that his application was insulting and undermined the office of the PP.
Masuku said Gordhan's only basis for describing the PP as corrupt and legally illiterate is because of the findings she made on the so-called rogue unit.
He said the courts shouldn't consider his application given his approach.
"You can't be insulting people because you don't agree on view," he said.
Earlier, Gordhan's legal representative, advocate Wim Trengove told the court that Mkhwebane ignored Gordhan's offer to respond to adverse findings against him in the unit probe.
He continued to discredit Mkhwebane's findings and said the unit was perfectly lawful and had a mandate to secure an efficient and effective enforcement in combating organised crime intended to defraud SARS.