Shamila Batohi and the NPA's week from hell — Failed extradition and calls for her resignation
There have been calls for NPA boss Shamila Batohi to resign following the entity's ongoing failure to prosecute State Capture cases. Batohi claims there are no fundamental problems in the NPA.
On Friday, 6 June 2025, ActionSA called for advocate Shamila Batohi to be removed as the head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) following the latest defeat in a State Capture prosecution. Meanwhile, the DA has revealed a set of reforms it believes can improve the justice system.
These announcements follow this week's ruling by the Free State Division of the High Court in Bloemfontein, where Judge Philip Loubser found the extradition of Moroadi Cholota, the former personal assistant of corruption-accused former Free State premier Ace Magashule, was unlawful and unconstitutional on the basis that the extradition was requested by the NPA rather than the justice minister.
This is related to the ongoing trial of 17 accused, including Magashule, over the tainted R225-million asbestos audit project in the Free State. The 17 accused, which include companies, are faced with 70 counts of corruption.
On Friday morning, ActionSA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip said the party called not only for Batohi's removal as the National Director of Public Prosecutions, but a 'full parliamentary inquiry' into what they claim is the NPA's 'ongoing prosecutorial failures and the extent to which political interference has infected its operations'.
Trollip said the NPA had 'once again exposed its deep dysfunction, either through incompetence or wilful neglect' in the ongoing asbestos trial and the handling of Cholota's extradition from the US.
'This is not an isolated blunder, but part of a disturbing and entrenched pattern. The NPA has become a refuge for the politically connected, a place where accountability is avoided, justice is delayed, and prosecutions collapse with shocking regularity.
'Under Shamila Batohi's leadership, the NPA reels from one scandal to the next. South Africans are left wondering if these failures are merely a result of incompetence, or is there a deliberate agenda to protect the corrupt?' said Trollip.
The NPA has come under fire on multiple fronts. Accountability Now director Paul Hoffman told Daily Maverick: 'The bottom line of the judgment is that they used the wrong procedure in the extradition — they got the wrong person to ask for the extradition.'
This, he said, 'upsets the entire apple cart and makes the extradition invalid, and once the extradition is invalid, then the court has got no business sitting in judgment over the person who has been extradited'.
Hoffman explained: 'At the time that they did the extradition, the Supreme Court of Appeal had not made the ruling which says that it's not for the prosecutors to ask for the extradition… It's for the ministry of justice to ask for the extradition.'
He continued: 'It's really not a typical bungle, but it's just another bungle.'
Batohi and the NPA respond
On Thursday night and Friday morning, Batohi has been on a media blitz responding to questions around the NPA.
During an interview with Newzroom Afrika, Batohi confirmed her team had met with Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi to reflect on this week's ruling. She revealed this centred around how pending and future extraditions would work.
'There's no fundamental problems in the NPA,' she told the broadcaster in an interview that spanned more than 2o minutes.
She said that in the case of the acquittal of Nigerian televangelist Timothy Omotoso on charges of rape and human trafficking, among others, 'that broke my heart' because of her fight for justice for victims of gender-based violence.
Batohi said: 'It's easy to put Shamila Batohi as the face of failure, but we really need to look at the challenges we're facing (systemically).'
In addition, she said that while she was 'disappointed by the setbacks' within prosecutions, she was 'proud of the progress so far' by NPA staff, the majority of whom she said were 'dedicated and committed' to the rule of law.
DA calls for reforms
Following the Cholota ruling, the DA said it would write to Parliament's justice committee so the NPA could 'account for yet another unacceptable failure in prosecuting State Capture cases'.
On Friday, the party's spokesperson on justice, Glynnis Breytenbach, said the DA would bring the issue to next Tuesday's justice committee meeting.
During a media briefing on Friday morning, Breytenbach, a former state prosecutor, said: 'In the high-profile State Capture matter involving Ace Magashule's former PA, Moroadi Cholota, the NPA bungled the extradition request by using the wrong authority — a mistake that now risks derailing accountability in yet another major case.'
The party is proposing a set of reforms, including passing the DA's 'Scorpions 2.0' Bill to create an independent Anti-Corruption Commission with the power to investigate and prosecute high-level corruption, free from political interference; amending the Constitution to ensure the NPA head is appointed by Parliament, and not by the president; the introduction of a dedicated parliamentary oversight subcommittee to keep the NPA accountable; and fighting for better funding, smarter recruitment, and stronger retention of experienced prosecutors.
Breytenbach dismissed calls for Batohi's removal. She said the party would not table such a motion, and 'we would certainly not support it'.
'The national director is not the problem at the NPA. It's not a one-man job or a one-woman job. While I think that she could possibly have done things differently, she is not doing a bad job, and the failures of the NPA are not, you know, attributable to her and her alone.'
Breytenbach said the process of appointing Batohi's replacement was 'something that concerns us deeply, and we've raised that more than a year ago already'. Batohi will turn 65 in January 2026 and retire at that point.
Breytenbach said the process should include public participation, following the process President Cyril Ramaphosa used to appoint Batohi. This, she said, was laudable: 'So we're hoping that he will do that again.'
She said the longer the process was postponed, the more dangerous it could become.
'It's a process that I would like to see start yesterday,' she said. DM
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