Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan did not attempt to influence the appointment of Judge Dhaya Pillay to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2016, the Public Protector has found.

On Wednesday, Busisiwe Mkhwebane released reports related to several investigations.

One of the probes related to a complaint lodged by Economic Freedom Fighters Member of Parliament Floyd Shivambu. 

The complaint came after Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews last year, in which former Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng hinted that Gordhan had conducted himself improperly at a meeting five years before.

At the time, Mogoeng said: "Is it potentially compromising to judicial independence and impartiality for a minister or a senior politician to be keenly interested in the upward mobility, or to look like he or she is interested in the upward mobility of a judge?"

Pillay said she was not aware of the interaction, and Mogoeng acknowledged that Gordhan had simply asked how she had done and did not say "anything like 'you should appoint her'".

News24 reported that Gordhan subsequently released a statement confirming that he had asked the question at the tail-end of a scheduled meeting and that it was in no way intended to influence any pending decision on Pillay's nomination to the Appeal Court.

On Wednesday, Mkhwebane said her office had closed the investigation because Shivambu's allegations could not be corroborated.

She said the investigations revealed that when Gordhan and Mogoeng met at the Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa in Camps Bay, Cape Town, on 6 April 2016, the spokesperson for the JSC had already announced the interview results, and it was already public knowledge that Pillay had not made it.

"It would therefore be factually or legally impossible for Mr Gordhan to have influenced the outcome of an interview that had already been concluded," she said.

"Accordingly, Mr Gordhan's conduct could not be regarded as having been in breach of paragraphs 2.1(c) and (d) and 2.3(b) of the Executive Ethics Code."