South Africa's judiciary is facing a crisis of confidence

SOUTH Africans live in hope. For seven nerve-wracking days, they waited patiently for President Cyril Ramaphosa to address them on one of the most pressing crises the country has faced since 1994.

- PROFESSOR SIPHO SEEPE

A week earlier, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi had placed the entire criminal justice system on trial. Mkhwanazi implicated the Minister of Police, Senzo Mchunu, top brass, correctional services, senior politicians and members of the judiciary in an intricate web of crime syndicates and drug cartels. The allegations put the country on the knife-edge. This is the stuff that collapses governments.

When Ramaphosa finally faced the nation, the address was characteristically and predictably underwhelming. All opposition parties took potshots at Ramaphosa. Those who were disappointed in Ramaphosa's utterances have themselves to blame.

First, Ramaphosa is not a man of courage. He has no backbone. Placed in a prickly situation, his instinct is to choose ANC's interests over those of the country.

Second, Ramaphosa and the ANC have demonstrated that an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution is politically meaningless.

Third, Ramaphosa does not come with clean hands. The Phala Phala farmgate scandal must have weighed heavily on his mind. The independent parliamentary panel, comprising luminaries in law, found Ramaphosa to be possibly guilty of serious misconduct of violating section 96(2)(b) by acting in a way that is inconsistent with his office. Ramaphosa was also found to have violated section 96(2)(b) by exposing himself to a situation involving a conflict between his official responsibilities and his private business.

The panel concluded: "Viewed as a whole, the information presented to the panel, prima facie, establishes that: (1) There was a deliberate intention not to investigate the commission of the crimes committed at Phala Phala openly." The damning findings by the former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo-led panel have not triggered the usual knee-jerk reaction that we have come to expect from the self-appointed custodians of constitutionalism. If anything, they have been conspicuously silent and absent.