Dhianti will respond to Mkhuebani’s request to step down by Friday

• Article 194 Commission Chair Qubudile Dyantyi will respond to the second suspended Public Defender Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s request to step him down by Friday.
• Mkhuebani’s request revolves around her husband’s allegations that the late ANC member Tina Jumat-Peterson tried to solicit bribes on behalf of herself, Diante and the ANC’s president, Bemi Magudina.
• Mkhwebani, whose term ends on October 14, has a history of accusing those who try to hold her accountable, including judges.

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The chair of the Article 194 panel inquiring into the fitness of the suspended Attorney General Busisiwe Mkhwebani, Gobdil Dayanti will respond to Mkhwebani’s latest attempt to remove him by Friday.

Last week, the embattled Mkhwebani made her second request to have my religion rejected.

The ARTICLE 194 Committee is inquiring whether Mkhuebani has shown such misconduct or incompetence that warrants her removal from office.

Mkhoebani’s request had its origins in allegations by her husband, David Skosana, that the late ANC MP Tina Jumat-Peterson solicited bribes of R200,000 each, Dayanti and the ANC’s chief, Bimi Magudina.

Skosana filed a complaint with the police, while Mkhwebani did so with the Parliament’s Ethics Committee.

Diante and Magudina have publicly denied the allegations.

Joemat-Pettersson died on June 5. Her death is the subject of an investigation.

Read | Mkhuebani submits another official request to remove the head of Section 194

After Mkhuebani, with the support of the EFF, the United Democratic Movement (UDM) and the Pan-African Transformation Movement, insisted that Dianthi step down at a Section 194 Commission meeting last month, he indicated that he would consider a written request to step down, as required by the commission’s directive.

On 12 July, Mkwebani submitted a formal request for his removal, compiled by her lawyer, Attorney Dali Mpofu and his associates, advocates Bright Shabalala and Hangwe Matlehbi, a day before the Constitutional Court upheld her suspension by President Cyril Ramaphosa and dismissed her appeal of the removal proceedings.

Mkhuebani gave seven reasons for rejecting my religion:

In her application, Mkhwebani said it was unimportant whether actual bias from my religion was present and that questioning her and her legal team’s motives in filing the motion for refusal was also grounds for refusal.

According to a statement from Parliament, Dianti referred to the request for refusal and told Mkhwebani’s lawyer that he would respond in writing by Friday.

Mr. Dianti indicated that he would turn his attention to the content of the request. The committee is awaiting a summary of the evidence from the evidence leaders. The Committee noted that Counsel Mkhwebani did not indicate her intention to make a closing argument or to submit a written closing statement,” the statement reads.

Mkhoebani has a history of accusing those who try to hold her to account of bias or disparagement.

In September last year, she filed another request for Dyantyi to step down, along with the request for Representative DA Kevin Milham to step down. She claimed that my religion was biased against her and her legal team, and allowed the process to be procedurally unfair.

My religion refused to recuse himself.

“I do so in the belief that the Public Defender has failed to establish any grounds on which it can be said that I am biased or that my conduct might give rise to concerns of bias,” he stated on Oct. 17.

Mkhuebani wanted Milleham to recuse himself because the motion that led to the impeachment proceedings had been passed on by his wife, MP Natasha Mazoni, as chief whip at the time.

Analysis | Mkhuebani is trying to bring to trial the judges who have ruled against her in an assault on the rule of law

Although the motion was adopted by the National Assembly – and thus became a National Assembly proposal – Mkhwebani and her legal team continued to refer to it as “Mazoni’s proposal” and to refer to Mazoni as the “Complainant”.

Milham, too, refused to stand down.

Mkhwebani subsequently challenged Dianti’s decision in court, but her application was denied by the Western Cape High Court. She is appealing to the Supreme Court of Appeals, and took to Twitter to raise money for this lawsuit.

Mkhuebani also filed an unsuccessful motion against evidence leaders and human rights defenders Nazrin Bawa and Ncumisa Mayosi.

On behalf of Mkhwebane, Mpofu alleged that Bawa and Mayosi acted with racism and malice when they disclosed payments made by the Public Defender’s Office to several high-profile defenders, including Mpofu.

In response, the evidence leaders indicated that they had been expressly instructed by the Commission to separate statutory payments of more than R2 million by the Public Defender’s Office to various legal practitioners and firms, and stressed that they had “no control over racism”. The demographic of service providers who have provided services to the Public Defender’s Office.

They said the accusations of racism made against them over the disclosure of the legal fees were also Not only is he a liar and “contrived”, but part of a desperate attempt to derail the investigation.

UDD leader Bantu Holomisa, who was often seen as Mkhwebani’s bidding on the committee, also made an unsuccessful request for Bawa and Maiose to step down.

During the intense litigation against the parliamentary impeachment process, Mkhwebani argued court papers Former National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modisi is “biased” against her. The courts did not agree.

In her testimony before the committee, she accused the judges who ruled against her of “professional jealousy She insisted that the courts had erred in rulings against her.

She also claimed that she was only facing possible removal because she had reached findings against Ramaphosa and called herself a “sacrificial lamb” who had been unfairly vilified by the “mainstream media”.

Last year, Mkhwebani filed a misconduct complaint with the Judicial Services Commission against retired Constitutional Court judge Chris Jafta, who wrote the scathing ruling in which the Supreme Court’s majority invalidated the Boosasa CR17 report. It did so by raising the same arguments it raised in its failed annulment application to the Constitutional Court.

Mkhwebani also sought to ruin the chances of Gauteng High Court judge Dunstan Mlambo being considered for chief justice by complaining, among other things, that he had refused to see her. Mlambo was one of the three judges to vacate the CR17 report for the first time.

Mpofu and EFF leader Julius Malema – a staunch supporter of Mkhwebane – also forced Mlambo to respond to baseless accusations of sexual harassment in his interview with the Constitutional Court’s Judicial Services Committee.

In 2019, Mkhwebani launched a completely unfounded attack on Gauteng High Court judge Sulit Puterill, who agreed to the request of Minister for Government Enterprises Pravin Gordhan to block the enforcement of its corrective measures in the so-called “rogue unit” SARS report, pending its final report. The successful challenge of this investigation.

Read | The Section 194 investigation may end earlier because of Mkhoebani’s disregard of deadlines

Mkhoebani later apologized to Bottrell.

There is also evidence before the commission that Mkhwebani signed articles penned by Paul Ngobeni, who is not allowed to practice law in South Africa, and which were disparaging of the judges who ruled against her. Some of these articles were paid for from the Public Defender’s Office’s legal services budget.

Mkhoebani, meanwhile, refused to participate in the Article 194 process, contenting herself with briefing her legal team on the handling of the dismissal application against Diyaanti.

After her testimony before the Commission could not be terminated because she had appeared continuously before the Commission without legal representation, the Commission unanimously decided on 9 June that it would send written questions to Mkhuebani, give her another opportunity to present further evidence before her, and indicate whether to answer the questions orally or In writing and in what form will the closing arguments be made.

She ignored all deadlines saying they were not valid.

The committee plans to adopt its report on July 28.

Mkhuebani’s term ends on October 14.

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