Why South African commissions fail to deliver justice and perpetuate violence
LONDIWE GUMEDE
FORMER Economic Freedom Front (EFF) politician Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi argues that a president cannot find anyone guilty.
He is, instead, advocating for a "proper" judicial commission of inquiry, led by a judge, with strict timelines. He deems this "proper" for a democracy.
However, the subsequent analysis of South African commissions reveals how they often fall short of this ideal, instead perpetuating systemic violence and delaying justice.
The Commissions Act, 1947 (Act No. 8 of 1947), used for enquiries like the Zondo Commission on State of Capture, originated under British colonial rule. This embedded a legalistic facade for systemic violence.
It enabled apartheid-era enquiries, such as the Hefer Commission (2003) and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which probed allegations of apartheid espionage against the then-National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli and the then-Justice Minister Penuel Maduna, and apartheid-era crime, respectively, to probe without any accountability.
There was also the Donen Commission, which probed the UN's 'oil for food' program, which exonerates individuals linked to the scandal, like Tokyo Sexwale and former Director General Sandile Nogxina. Like colonial inquests pathologising indigenous resistance, modern commissions prioritise bureaucratic order over human dignity.
Actress Tebogo Thobejane's condemnation, 'No mention of the lack of protection… left to fight alone,' echoes this centuries-old erasure.
After a brush with death, she now attends a trial process that offers legal theatrics, not safety.
Thobejane, a survivor of a hit allegedly engineered by her ex-boyfriend Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala and his wife, feels betrayed by the lack of protection against the suspected mastermind of the underworld. Commissions ritually harvest victim trauma while withholding redress.
Matlala will likely be the subject of a commission of inquiry headed by acting deputy Chief Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga after his name was mentioned by KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi two weeks ago.
The Marikana Commission, which was established after the August 2012 massacre of Lonmin mine workers, gathered 641 days of testimony from widows of massacred miners and colleagues of the departed miners yet delivered no prosecutions or timely reparations.
Similarly, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) heard 21,000 victim testimonies but granted amnesty to 1,500 perpetrators, providing only negligible justice.
This dynamic inherits colonial evidence-gathering: Black pain becomes archival fodder, catalogued and then discarded.
As Thobejane noted, President Cyril Ramaphosa's speeches often overlook victims, reducing their experiences to procedural footnotes.
Commission structures inherently protect power networks.
The Mokgoro Commission (2018) and Ginwala Inquiry (2007) scrutinised prosecutors threatening political elites under the NPA Act. Enquiries into police violence, such as those in Khayelitsha (2012), operated with weaker mandates.
This bifurcation mirrors colonial "divide and rule" tactics, ensuring that accountability evaporates. The Zondo Commission's R1 billion inquiry, for instance, yielded minimal prosecutions despite documenting over R1.5 trillion in state capture.
Victims like Thobejane receive a whiff of justice, marked by endless postponements while perpetrators retain influence. Ramaphosa's latest commission of inquiry's mandate is investigation, not prosecution.
Judicial appointments cloak commissions in false objectivity. Retired judges like Farlam (Marikana) and Seriti (Arms Deal) lent legitimacy to enquiries that ultimately shielded the interests of the state and corporations.
The president's latest 'independent commission' further demonstrates how these bodies often obscure underlying political complexities and power struggles.
This legal theatre pathologises victims: Marikana miners were framed as 'illegal strikers,' while Thobejane's assault became a tabloid spectacle.
When commissions centre perpetrators' due process over victims' safety, they enact "terror through bureaucracy." The TRC's unresolved legacy continues to haunt recent and past commissions.
Thirty years later, only 137 of its recommended prosecutions have been investigated, while apartheid-era cases like the Cradock Four murders remain in legal limbo.
Nomonde Calata's tears at a 2025 inquest echo her 1996 TRC testimony, testifying to the commission's broken promises. Thobejane's demand for 'accountability and support' confronts this cycle; her ex-boyfriend faces new charges while his police and political connections remain intact.
Reparations remain theoretical: TRC victims received a single payment of R30 000 each, while Marikana families await R1 billion in compensation.
This reflects colonialism's core calculus: human suffering indexed against fiscal "pragmatism."Breaking this machinery requires centring victims as architects, not evidence.
Unlike President Ramaphosa's commissions, a transformative approach would enforce existing recommendations: implementing the Khayelitsha Commission's 2012 police reforms, funding TRC-mandated educational reparations, and prosecuting the network of Thobejane's ex-boyfriend beyond his hitmen.
Thobejane's courage, demanding protection while testifying, sets a model for this agency. Yet, without dismantling the Commissions Act and colonial-era legalisms, enquiries remain stone fortresses where violence is ritualised, not remedied.
South Africa remains fractured by inequality, a landscape where commissions consecrate state power while the vulnerable fight alone in the ruins.
(Gumede is a freelance journalist with interests in politics, economics, sports, travel, and community news. Her views don't necessarily reflect those of the Sunday Tribune or IOL)
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