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President Zuma has done it again. Just as his appointment of Adv Menzi Simelane as National Director of Public Prosecutions induced a sense of shock, the appointment of Adv Nomgcobo Jiba has caused astonishment.

The objections against the new Deputy National Director are directly comparable to those against Adv Simelane. A Deputy National Director, like the NDPP, must under the NPA Act be a fit and proper person with due regard paid to conscientiousness and integrity. Adv Jiba on all available versions of her history at the NPA engaged in both political and personal plotting utterly unbecoming a prosecutor, in each case directed at senior prosecutor Adv Gerrie Nel.

The President appears to be creating some spare capacity and depth at the top of the NPA, putting all the President’s men and women in place. Under the NPA Act a Deputy designated by either the President or the NDPP takes over in the absence for whatever reason of the NDPP himself (whose appointment the DA is seeking to have set aside in court). Mr Zuma is failing in his solemn duty as President of the Republic to make proper appointments. A politically partisan prosecuting authority run by plotters is incompatible with the independent and impartial administration of justice and with constitutional democracy. His own experience at the receiving end of the prosecuting authority’s endeavours should make him especially scrupulous in this regard, instead he appears to be acting with some cynicism.

We will try to establish when the Justice Minister appears before the Justice Committee what position he took when consulted on this appointment and that of the somewhat obscure adv Nomvula Mokhatla. If he was in agreement or simply limp-wristed then he too is failing in his duty.