Cabinet’s security cluster ministers plan to approach a high court for a judicial review of public protector Thuli Madonsela’s Nkandla report.
“We are not taking the public protector to court. We want her report to undergo a judicial review, possibly in the high court in Pretoria,” acting government spokesperson Phumla Williams said on Thursday.
“I don’t know when this will take place. We will prepare our arguments, which will be given in court.”
The cluster believed Madonsela’s report lacked clarity in some areas, and her findings were “irrational, contradictory and … informed by material errors of law”.
“It is the ministers’ view that the public protector’s report and the investigation she conducted trespass on the separation of powers doctrine and … section 198(d) of the Constitution, which vests national security in Parliament and [the] national executive,” she said.
Madonsela, in her report, found that President Jacob Zuma and his family had unduly benefited from R246-million security upgrades to his private Nkandla homestead in KwaZulu-Natal, which included a swimming pool, a cattle kraal, and an amphitheatre.
She recommended, among other things, that he pay back a portion of the money.
Madonsela has become a household name in South Africa for her efforts to fight corruption and was named as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world earlier this year. – Sapa