RIAN MALAN: The strange case of Nomgcobo Jiba
Yet another controversial appointment deepens doubts about the President Zuma's commitment to the rule of law
Spare a thought for South African journalists, reduced to peering into murk and gun smoke for clues as to what’s going on inside South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the crisis-riddled state agency that decides the fate of criminal suspects in the country. Police files flow into the NPA’s maw, and decisions emerge on the far side — prosecute this case, abandon that one. Once, these decisions were respected. Now they often precipitate furious battles between rival law enforcement factions whose weapons include dirty tricks, illegal wiretaps and sensational leaks to the media. On August 18, however, the smoke cleared momentarily. The scene is a press conference at the NPA’s Pretoria headquarters. Two figures sit on the podium. The dashing man with shaven pate is Shaun Abrahams, a youngish lawyer plucked from relative obscurity to become the new head of the NPA. The woman beside him is Nomgcobo Jiba, a veteran of the NPA’s internal wars. Abrahams announces that he is a...
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