Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
(Photo by Gallo Images/Daily News/Raymond Morare)
Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane.
(Photo by Gallo Images/Daily News/Raymond Morare)
Public Protector Bisisiwe Mkhwebane has lost her application for leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeals on Monday 29 June over the damning judgement she received in 2019 regarding the controversial Estina Dairy Farm report.
Mkhwebane was ordered to pay costs and told that her application held little to no chance of success.
Appeal lacked merits
The ruling by Judge Ronel Tolmay dismissed the embattled Public Protector’s appeal as lacking in substance.
“The application for leave to appeal is dismissed with costs on the grounds that there is no reasonable prospects of success in an appeal and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard,” the court said.
Mkwebane was ordered to pay 85% of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution’s (Casac) legal fees after the civil rights organisation had applied for the report to be set aside.
Casac Lawson Naidoo said that there was little surprise that Mkwebane’s attempt to appeal the matter was dismissed before it really began.
“The High Court found great frailties in the Public Protector’s report and therefore set it aside as being irrational and therefore unconstitutional and we’ve always believed that there was no basis from which the Public Protector could lodge an appeal,” he told EWN.
The Pretoria High Court had ruled in favour of the Democratic Alliance and Casac in November 2019 and ordered that Mkwebane reopen her report into the Vrede dairy farm scandal.
Another loss for embattled Mkwebane
Advocate Mkhwebane, who’s report into the alleged corruption that took place in 2015 at the Estina dairy farm failed to make links to state capture involving the Guptas, Former Free State Premier Ace Magashule and Jacob Zuma, has suffered a multitude of court embarrassments in the last few years.
Before today’s ruling, Mkwebane and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) lost their Constitutional Court appeal against Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, regarding the “Sars Rogue Unit” case in May 2020.
