National director of public prosecutions Shamila Batohi. Photo: Oupa Nkosi/M&G)
A panel looking into the fitness of South Gauteng director of public prosecutions to hold office has questioned national director of public prosecutions (NDPP) Shamila Batohi’s performance as head of the National Prosecuting Authority.
The Nkabinde inquiry established by President Cyril Ramaphosa is primarily investigating Chauke’s alleged misconduct in instituting charges against former KwaZulu-Natal head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks), Johan Booysen.
Batohi testified that she had not received any emails regarding alleged human rights abuses by Booysen. Nor had she looked at the case docket against him; instead, she delegated this to her deputy.
“Advocate Batohi, you keep on saying the NDPP has a lot of responsibilities that she deals with. Just to satisfy my curiosity, we know from your evidence that you do not read dockets, and now this morning we know you do not read all the mail you receive,” inquiry panel member Elizabeth Baloyi-Mere said.
“Can you just maybe enlighten us on the type of work that the NDPP does that keeps an NDPP so busy that she can’t even read her emails that are sent to her inbox?”
“I’m not saying I don’t read emails. I read my emails. But when a deputy national director is copied, I expect that they will deal with it,” Batohi responded, adding that her work involved high-level strategic functions such as justice initiatives and stakeholder management.
Baloyi-Mere further asked why Batohi did not mention litigation as part of her work and requested clarification on what she meant by “high-level strategic planning”.
“You said strategic implementation at a high level, and this is not the first time you use the term high level when you answer a question, so I’m trying to understand what you mean by dealing with issues at a high level,” Baloyi-Mere said.
“It’s important for a national director to focus initiatives at a strategic level generally,” Batohi said.
She said operational matters were below the national director, and she occasionally received reports on legal operational issues in an organisation that has nationwide reach, with over 5 000 employees.
Chauke’s counsel, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, asked Batohi what she did when she received an email about abusive language from Booysen directed at a police inspector who acted as a whistleblower and reported human rights abuses allegedly committed by the KwaZulu-Natal-based Cato Manor special police unit.
“Could you then explain yourself, why a witness who is being threatened and intimidated and abused, who has reported that to you personally, you have not taken action to protect that witness?” asked Ngcukaitobi.
“I cannot recall what exactly happened at the time, and it would be speculative of me to try and answer right now. There are instances when matters are referred to me, and if the deputy national director is copied there, I expect that they will, in fact, attend to it. And I can only imagine that’s what happened in this case,” Batohi responded.
Ngcukaitobi said her deputy national director, Sibongile Mzinyathi, did not take up the matter, and there wasn’t an oversight as Batohi testified on Friday.
He reiterated that the matter was brought to her directly and prodded: “Why did you fail to protect a witness who was being threatened and intimidated by a criminally accused?”
“It wasn’t a failure to protect, as I said, I can’t even recall seeing these messages. I can only say I would have expected advocate Mzinyathi, given that it was sent to her as well, as deputy NDPP, to deal with it. But I did not see the contents of messages at the time,” said Batohi.
Ngcukaitobi said the email was “criminal in nature because it amounts to witness tampering” and asked how Batohi could not have seen an email sent to her or failed to follow up on the allegations.