Chief justice Raymond Zondo is not known for being prompt. Thorough to a fault? Perhaps even bogged down by minutiae? Yes. But swift? Not quite. It is for this reason that it comes as little surprise he is now a week late in handing President Cyril Ramaphosa the final state capture inquiry report.
That Zondo has been consistently tardy in his submissions is more problematic now that he is the country’s most senior judge. The chief justice missed a deadline in a high court order. He plans to seek condonation but had yet to do so by close of business on Tuesday.
To make matters worse this is no unschooled litigant who might be forgiven for misunderstanding how court orders work. He is the very head of SA’s judiciary. Being so lax is not a good look on a leader for whom the bar is set extremely high. That said, in cases like this, the law makes provision for human error where there is good reason and the mishap is without malice.
And at last, Zondo is due to give Ramaphosa the concluding tome in a ceremony on Wednesday afternoon in Cape Town. That submission, which comprises several volumes including a much hyped-up section on state security, might be more easily delivered using a wheelbarrow than two hands.
Zondo’s recommendations, some of which have already caused ructions in the governing party and will cause significant and enduring tremors in government and politics, are of such gravity that a delay in favour of quality is easily the lesser of two evils.
Skewed comparison
To be fair, commissions of inquiry are complex beasts the final products of which demand time and care. Even retired appeals court judge Robert Nugent needed more time, if only weeks not months, to produce his final text.
Admittedly, this is a skewed comparison. The scope of the state capture inquiry was far broader than that of the Nugent commission of inquiry into the SA Revenue Service (Sars). The Nugent commission lasted months and concerned only one site of attempted capture.
The distinctions do not end there: whereas the Nugent commission issued interim reports along the way, Zondo’s commission did not. Quite likely thanks to this method, Nugent’s final report was finalised about six weeks after the last witness testified.
Nugent’s final report includes seven of 200 pages summarising crisp recommendations reflected in earlier chapters for ease of reference. Zondo may well include a similar index in his submission this week. Presented in this format, the recommendations provide a checklist of possible changes to legislation and other corrective measures. Since that report was produced in December 2018, Sars has already implemented several.
The arrival of the final section of Zondo’s pièce de resistance might seem to be a conclusive event after four years of slog. But we know that is far from so. For one thing, there is inquiry administration to wrap up and an archive of evidence in both physical and digital format to populate.
Criminal procedures
As with Nugent’s product, in all likelihood there will be legal onslaughts with which to grapple. Ramaphosa will stand before parliament in October and speak to his fellow South Africans (what a caterwauling perversion that might well be, if the latest of his appearances is any gauge).
Of course, there are the criminal procedures driven by the Independent Directorate (ID) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Some of the NPA’s “seminal” cases on state capture are promised by October, some of which are being informed by the inquiry’s work.
After four years’ running and three years of public testimony, the true test of Zondo’s wisdom lies in his recommendations. Ramaphosa will prove his temerity or timidity in implementing them.
And while, to be blunt, Nugent was arguably quick and decisive, the process so far provides the uneasy feeling this inquiry’s recommendations will be enacted in a slow, lugubrious fashion. Let’s hope time will prove us wrong.
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