/ 7 June 2013

NPA: Breytenbach review goes ahead

Glynnis Breytenbach.
Glynnis Breytenbach.

"The NPA is going ahead with the review," spokesperson Bulelwa Makeke said on Friday.

On Thursday, the NPA said Breytenbach would be allowed to return to work as well as meet acting National Director of Public Prosecutions Nomgcobo Jiba on her return on Monday.

Breytenbach's lawyer Gerhard Wagenaar said Breytenbach was "delighted and she is relieved".

The meeting between Breytenbach and Jiba will "assist Glynnis to be reintegrated back into her office because she has not been at work for over a year", Wagenaar told the Mail & Guardian on Thursday.

The letter from the NPA followed a meeting on Wednesday afternoon between Breytenbach and her bosses on whether she could return to work. 

On May 27, Breytenbach was found not guilty on 15 counts by a disciplinary hearing, which sat at the NPA's head office in Pretoria.

A core charge against the anti-graft prosecutor was failing to act impartially when investigating the Kumba Iron Ore/Sishen and Imperial Crown Trading mining rights issue, because of "improper relations" with Sishen's lawyer Mike Hellens. 

'Legally unsustainable'
She was suspended from the NPA on April 30 last year.

She was also found not guilty on any of the alternative charges. The following day, the NPA announced it would bring a court challenge against the disciplinary hearing's ruling.

At the time, NPA spokesperson Nomilo Mpondo described the findings as "factually incorrect and legally unsustainable". 

For this reason, the NPA would take it to the Labour Court for review.

"The findings have serious implications on the enforcement of discipline in the NPA and will elevate insubordination, disobedience and unethical conduct into acceptable practice in the workplace, something which goes against employment law in our constitutional state," Mpondo said on May 28.

"The court will be asked to review and set aside the findings and replace them with a finding of guilty against Ms Breytenbach. In these circumstances, the court process should be respected and allowed to take its course," Mpondo said at the time. – Sapa