Criticism doesn't warrant striking off – Jiba counsel

An application that could result in three senior prosecutors, including deputy prosecutions head Nomgcobo Jiba, struck from the roll of advocates got under way in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) yesterday, with Jiba’s counsel arguing that criticism by a number of judges did not warrant her being struck off. A Business Day report notes Jiba and two other senior prosecutors – head of the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit Lawrence Mrwebi and North Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions Sibongile Mzinyathi – face professional sanction because of scathing criticism of how they conducted litigation on behalf of the NPA in three politically-sensitive cases. Business Day notes the cases dealt with the decision to drop corruption charges against former head of the Crime Intelligence division Richard Mdluli; the ‘spy tapes’ case, about providing to the DA phone recordings that led to the dropping of corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma; and the Booysen case, which dealt with the rationality of the decision to prosecute police Major-General Johan Booysen for his alleged role in the Cato Manor ‘death squad’. The General Council of the Bar (GCB) has suggested that the ‘trenchant’ criticism, including Appeal Court justices in two of the cases, warranted Jiba’s removal from the roll. Jiba’s counsel, Norman Arendse SC, dealt at length with the Mdluli judgments of the High Court and the SCA, and added the Bar Council application was an ‘extraordinary and totally unprecedented’ case, as Jiba was not being impugned for her conduct as an advocate, but as the head of the NPA.