Selebi: presidents have been impeached for less
It has emerged that acting head of the national prosecuting authority, Mokotedi Mpshe, who stepped into suspended boss Vusi Pikoli’s shoes, succeeded in having the arrest warrant for Jackie Selebi cancelled. He failed, however, to get a related search and seizure warrant withdrawn. This strongly supports the speculation that Pikoli’s suspension by president Thabo Mbeki was not because, as Mbeki claimed, because of a breakdown in relations between him and the justice minister, Brigitte Mabandla, but because he obtained, and refused to request the recission, of warrants against Selebi. The political interference has prompted Cosatu’s Zwelenzima Vavi, the Independent Democrat leader Patricia de Lille, and the United Democratic Movement’s Bantu Holomisa, to join the Democratic Alliance’s urgent appeal for Mbeki to take the country into his confidence on this issue. The longer he remains silent, the worse things get. By now, everything points to executive interference in the operation of the judicial branch of government. Obstruction of justice by the president of the country would precipitate a full-scale constitutional crisis. Presidents have been impeached for less.
Recent, decent coverage:
- A good analysis: Tell Us the Truth, Mr President! — Sunday Times, 7 October 2007
- A scathing column: Lavatorial milestone flushed away by horror of SA dream in tatters — Mondli Makhanya, Sunday Times, 7 October 2007
- More reporting: Police, NPA in for a ’shake-up’ — Cape Times, 8 October 2007
