PROTECTING THE CONSTITUTION
Ideologues join the greedy in trying to grab control of levers of power
A bland definition of state capture is that it is "a type of systemic political corruption in which private interests significantly influence a state’s decision-making processes to their own advantage". A more useful definition is offered by the World Bank’s Joel Hellman. He has defined state capture as "the efforts of firms to shape the laws, policies and regulations of the state to their own advantage by providing illicit private gains to public officials". A judicial insight into the phenomenon was offered by Justice Johan Froneman in his minority judgment in November 2014 in the last of the three Glenister cases (concerning the adequacy of vital anti-corruption machinery of state) to reach the Constitutional Court. He observed that: "[Glenister] tried to show that the corruption at the very centre of our political life is so pervasive that the unthinkable may be true: our elected government is trying to undermine the independence of our constitutional institutions in order to at...
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