Justice Home The Constitution Flag

Speeches

Home> Newsroom> Speeches

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Mmamoloko Kubayi replies to Questions in the National Council of Provinces – Tuesday, 17 June 2025

QUESTION 1: MINISTER ON THE NPA'S PROGRESS IN CAPACITY, PERFORMANCE, AND ACCOUNTABILITY

(a) The NPA that has moved from an annual performance of 50% in 2020/21 to an organisation that performed at 73% in 2023/24. The upward performance trajectory saw the NPA making a considerable contribution towards the 2019-2024 MTSF targets, achieving high conviction rates in all court fora and attaining R11 billion in freezing orders, against a target of R10.4 billion. The staff establishment expanded by 34% since 2019 and has a substantially reduced vacancy rate. Though challenges remain but the improvement in performance is a demonstration of a well-capacitated and well-resourced organisation.

The NPA’s current state of:
(i) Human capacity
The NPA has a total headcount of 5513 permanent employees plus an additional 327 appointed on Fixed Term Contracts. 3562 prosecutors are permanently employed prosecutors, and an additional 289 prosecutors have been appointed on contracts as of the end of May 2025. The NPA is currently on a drive to fill vacancies (268 posts are at various stages of the recruitment process) as of May 2025. In the past year until April 2025, 728 permanent appointments and 685 contract appointments were made.

The Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC), whose mandate is to deal with the state capture-related cases, is being prioritised in the recruitment of permanent capacity since its establishment in August 2024 as a permanent unit in the NPA.

(ii) Financial
The total budget allocated to the NPA for 2025/26 is R6,135,360 (R6,1bn), with R5.2 bn going towards Compensation of Employees and over R830m being Goods & Services. It is projected that the NPA will remain within the 2025/26 budget allocation.

(iii) Technical Capacity
Prosecutors are continually subjected to training and skills development in various aspects of the job. For the current financial year. 148 training programmes are planned, and to date, 10 of these have been delivered, with 60 employees benefitting from the programmes.

In addition, as part of continued capacitation, the NPA undertakes an annual intake into the Aspirant Prosecutor Programme.

In the current financial year, 70 aspirants were recruited from outside the NPA, targeting the youth and another 30 recruited internally, for serving employees in possession of an LLB degree but not appointed in a legal position. Training programmes.

The Sexual Offences and Community Affairs (SOCA)’s mandate is to provide training to prosecutors to effectively deal with GBVF and sexual offences matters.

b) & c) Steps to address challenges

The NPA embarked on a capability review study to determine the capacity of the prosecutors to deal with specialised commercial and corruption-related matters. The study provides a picture of the levels of capacity and where it resides among the prosecutors.

Emanating from the study, plans have been put in place in line with the outcomes of the study. Most of the interventions are in the planning and/or initial implementation stage. This was assisted by the donations which are being used particularly to enhance capability in dealing with complex organised crime and complex commercial crimes, including corruption.

A curriculum framework has been developed covering specific topics identified during the study, and the next phase of the project is the development of modules that prosecutors will be trained on. This specialised training is planned to commence during the second half of the year.

QUESTION 2: MINISTER ON REFORMS TO STRENGTHEN THE NATIONAL PROSECUTING AUTHORITY

(i) According to currently available information, the current workload per prosecutor in the lower courts is split between the work of the District Court and the Regional Court, as the types of cases vary significantly. The breakdown of the split is as follows:

Apart from the criminal court work, prosecutors in both District and Regional courts have dealt on average with 207 decision dockets in the past financial year. The number of verdict cases finalised in the past financial year per prosecutor was:

(ii) Compared to international caseloads, the prosecutors in South Africa deal with an average workload that is not outside the norm. For example, countries with the highest average number of cases per prosecutor include Iceland, Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Austria, with figures ranging from several hundred to several thousand cases per prosecutor annually.

In Austria, the average prosecutor received 2,821 cases per year; in France, 2,893; in Denmark, 905; and in Switzerland, 2,000–3,000 cases per prosecutor per year. From these examples, it is clear that South African prosecutors are not overburdened with unreasonable caseloads as compared to other countries.

(iii) No link has been established in the past between the current workload and the conviction rates. Thus, conviction rates do not fluctuate as such due to the workloads. The type of cases, as well as the kind of evidence presented to the court, mostly affect the conviction rates.

QUESTION 3: MINISTER ON TRANSFORMING BRIEFING PATTERNS AND STRENGTHENING OVERSIGHT IN RELATION TO LEGAL SECTOR CODE AND THE ROLE OF THE STATE ATTORNEY

The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development does not have the government-wide capacity and systems to monitor the briefing and outsourcing of legal work patterns. It, however, monitors the outsourcing and briefing patterns of cases outsourced to private practitioners through the Office of the State Attorneys (OSA) on behalf of the national and provincial spheres of government. Municipalities, the third sphere of government and other state organs of the state such as State-owned enterprises have their own systems of outsourcing legal work. The State Attorney Act, as amended, is silent on whether municipalities and state-owned enterprises are supposed to consume legal services from OSA or not; hence, OSA renders services to the two spheres of government stated above only, excluding municipalities and state-owned enterprises. During 2020, the Minister of Justice and the Legal Practice Council initiated the process for the development of a transformation sector code. The process was guided by the B-BBEE Act and it culminated in the adoption of the proposed legal sector code in February 2021. The Legal Sector Code (LSC) aimed at transforming the briefing patterns in favour of the previously disadvantaged legal practitioners was gazetted on 20 September 2024. However, it must be noted that the LSC is currently being legally challenged through the courts by the big law firms led by Norton Rose Fullbright. Paragraph 13 of the LSC provides for the establishment of the Legal Sector Code Charter Council (the LSCCC) by the Minister of Justice. Amongst other things, the LSCCC will monitor Legal outsourcing targets for private and public institutions to improve participation of historically disadvantaged practitioners and law firms in the legal sector. The briefing patterns for the public and private sectors will be monitored by the LSCCC with the assistance of the Solicitor General's office.

QUESTION 4: MINISTER ON REFORMS TO STRENGTHEN THE MAGISTRATE COMMISSION

(1) We reaffirm our commitment to supporting and ensuring that our country has a strong and independent judiciary. The Strengthening of the Magistrates Commission certainly forms part of ongoing policy discussion towards ensuring that it carries out its mandate more efficiently. The issue of having full time Commissioners has not been formally brought to the Minister`s attention and accordingly I will engage with the Magistrates Commission on the matter through the Deputy Minister, who is my representative on the Magistrates Commission to get their inputs on the matter. We will report further on the matter after the engagement.

(2) (a)(b) It is acknowledged that this was a major issue hampering the finalization of disciplinary hearings, however I have been informed that the situation has improved vastly in the last two years, with more magistrates willing to be appointed to lead evidence and preside over disciplinary hearings. The Commission has also utilised the services of retired judges and magistrates where necessary and will continue to do so going forward. The Magistrates Commission currently has 5 senior magistrates [2 on secondment] in its Ethics Division to support the Commission with complaints against magistrates. The Commission at its last meeting held on 2-3 June 2025 began a process of reviewing the capacity of the division to assist with investigations and disciplinary hearings. It is hoped that the Commission will finalise this aspect at its scheduled meeting in August 2025.

QUESTION 5: MINISTER ON THE NPA’S ROLE IN REOPENED INQUESTS AND APARTHEID-ERA ACCOUNTABILITY

(a) The NPA is committed to ensuring justice for apartheid era crimes so that families can find closure and begin the healing process. We acknowledge that our country’s history is besmirched with unspeakable acts of gross human rights violations, committed under a veil of secrecy. A large volume of TRC cases remains unresolved. Families deserve that justice be served and have repeatedly demanded the truth.

To get justice, we must first establish the truth about how a victim/s met his/her demise. A case must be fully investigated by an investigating officer who is appointed to deal with TRC matters only. It is his/her mandate to gather evidence to enable an informed decision to be taken as to whether to prosecute/not prosecute/hold an inquest/re-open an inquest.

This decision is taken by an experienced senior state advocate who was appointed to oversee TRC matters only. It may be that, as a result of the duration of time that has lapsed, a docket may no longer be available, and important documents to pursue an investigation may no longer be available.

An informed decision will be taken by the prosecutor and the decision communicated to the family of the deceased.

As is evident in the current proceedings of the Cradock Four, evidence has been led from important witnesses, including the loved ones of Messrs Goniwe, Mhlauli, Mkonto and Calata, which throws light on what transpired in 1985. The purpose of the reopened inquest was to place evidence before an inquest court which was not been previously presented. In doing so, it also provides a platform to families and witnesses in a democratic South Africa, where evidence is presented in line with the Rule of Law. Closure is important for all families, which is why the NPA has adopted a victim-centred approach. As long as the truth is not exposed, it will hamper all efforts to find closure.

(b) This matter, like previous reopened inquests, has implications. Once the court has finalised its judgement, the record of the reopened inquest proceedings will be referred to the NPA for decision. If there is evidence against any person/s, and after a comprehensive investigation, such person/s will be charged criminally. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was clear that persons who did not apply for amnesty or who applied for amnesty and were refused amnesty should be prosecuted criminally if the investigation reveals that an offence was committed. There must be accountability for past human rights abuses, provided they have not been prescribed.

QUESTION 6: MINISTER ON PROGRESS IN RELATION TO THE PROSECUTION OF STATE CAPTURE CASES

(a) The NPA has made important progress in responding to state capture corruption matters, both in terms of the number of high-profile cases enrolled, and by removing the profit from crime through the work of the NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU). Since the submission of the report to the President, IDAC has been dealing with 120 recommendations by the State Capture Commission (SCC), which are dealt with under 37 cases.

Of these cases, 82 recommendations comprising 20 cases are still under investigation, 23 recommendations comprising 9 cases are before the court, 4 recommendations comprising 2 cases have been finalised,11 recommendations comprising 5 cases are under consideration for authorisation, while IDAC decided not to prosecute 1 case involving 1 recommendation.

IDAC is also dealing with state capture-related matters where no specific recommendations were made by Chief Justice Zondo. These are 57 cases, 28 cases are before the court, 23 are under investigation, and 6 are being considered for authorisation.

Attached is the infographic marked Annexure” C” that depicts the summary of the matters, including the number of accused persons and entities before the court as at the end of March 2025.

(b) The enrolled cases are very complex, most with more than 10 accused persons and entities. The accused persons normally bring interlocutory applications, change legal representatives, who then apply for postponements, which delay matters. IDAC only came into operation in August 2024; therefore, the recruitment of Investigators only commenced recently. The issue of investigative capacity still affects IDAC’s ability to finalise investigations within a reasonable period.

(c) The IDAC always opposes these applications and apply in terms of section 342A of the CPA to force the defence to trial. IDAC also collaborate with other stakeholders like DPCI on investigations, SARS for tax prosecution, AFU and SIU to recover lost funds.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES: Terrence Manase, Spokesperson to the Minister – 082 338 6707

ISSUED BY THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA