Exploring complexities of SA’s 2025 commissions of inquiry

SOUTH Africa's great political safety valve has always been the commission of inquiry.

- SIZWE DLAMINI

When pressure builds, we appoint a judge, hire evidence leaders, and wheel the cameras into a hotel ballroom.In 2025, that instinct has gone into overdrive. Three major inquiries have framed the year: the national Khampepe Commission into delays in prosecuting Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases; the Madlanga Commission into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system; and the Usindiso/Khampepe Commission in Gauteng into the deadly inner-city building fire and the broader "bad buildings" crisis.

Taken together, they show the good, the bad and the frankly ugly of South Africa's reliance on commissions.

The good - hard truths finally on the record:

On the positive side, these inquiries are surfacing truths that have been buried for years. The TRC cases inquiry, formally established in May, is the product of a lawsuit by 25 families of apartheid-era victims who accuse successive democratic governments of blocking or neglecting more than 300 cases the TRC handed to prosecutors.

For decades, allegations of political interference in these prosecutions hovered over the ANC but were never properly tested. A dedicated judicial commission, chaired by retired Constitutional Court justice Sisi Khampepe, at least promises a systematic airing of who decided what, when, across several administrations.

The Madlanga Commission goes to the heart of today's security crisis. Triggered by an explosive July media briefing by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, it has been tasked with probing whether criminal syndicates - including drug cartels - have infiltrated the police, prosecutors, intelligence services, metro police departments, correctional services and even parts of the judiciary.