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Public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
- The Speaker of the National Assembly, Thandi Modise, received the report of the independent panel on the suitability of Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane for the position.
- The report will be available next week.
- The report must be considered by the National Assembly.
The Speaker of the National Assembly, Thandi Modise, received a report from an independent panel that had to determine if there is a prima facie Case for the dismissal of the defender Busisiwe Mkhwebane as Public Protector.
However, the panel’s recommendation would remain secret until next week.
Modise appointed Judge Bess Nkabinde, defender of Dumisa Ntsebeza SC and defender of Johan de Waal SC in November last year to the panel.
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However, due to the specific nature of the matter, the group requested that the 30-day period be extended. On December 4, 2020, the Speaker invoked the relevant provisions of the Rules of Procedure, which allowed her to formulate a rule to extend the deadline to 90 days, “read a statement from the Speaker of Parliament, Moloto Mothapo.
“Since then, the panel has completed its work and presented its report to the chair. The chair expressed appreciation to the panelists for their dedicated service. The report will be available the week of March 1, 2021.”
The panel had to conduct a preliminary investigation and assess whether there were prima facie evidence to show that Mkhwebane was guilty of misconduct; he was disabled; or was incompetent.
Movement
This is part of a parliamentary impeachment process that was launched last year after the Chief Prosecutor Natasha Mazzone filed a motion to initiate removal proceedings against Mkhwebane with Modise.
Mkhwebane tried unsuccessfully to obtain a court injunction to stop the process, pending his challenge to the rules that the National Assembly adopted for the process, often called impeachment, although the word is not used in South African law.
The next step in the process is for the Speaker to schedule the National Assembly to consider the panel’s recommendations.
If the panel recommends that there be a prima facie In the event of the impeachment of Mkhwebane, and the National Assembly takes this position, the matter should be referred and President Cyril Ramaphosa should be informed.
The committee must then conduct an investigation, and Mkhwebane will have the right to be heard by the committee. The committee must compile a report with findings and recommendations, which will be presented to the National Assembly.
If the report recommends the removal of Mkhwebane and has the support of a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, Ramaphosa should remove her.
