Just more than a week ago, KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi dropped a bombshell when he alleged that police minister Senzo Mchunu, who has since been placed on leave by President Cyril Ramaphosa, was involved in criminality.
According to Mkhwanazi, Mchunu is doing the bidding of a criminal syndicate which has infiltrated democratic institutions of our country, including the judiciary and other agencies of the criminal justice system.
The allegations are damning and must be investigated thoroughly because the future of SA’s democracy is at stake.
A compromised criminal justice system, and particularly a compromised judiciary, will be the final nail on the coffin of a country which is in a state of deterioration in many respects.
The reality of the situation is that SA’s path to prosperity has been deferred.
Over the years, the quality of life has decreased significantly for the country’s residents.
Infrastructure is crumbling — and nowhere is this more evident than in Johannesburg, the economic nerve-centre of our country.
Johannesburg, a city where I was born and raised, and where I still reside when I am not in Germany pursuing my PhD, is in such a state of deterioration that a presidential intervention unit had to be established to arrest the decline.
Little is working in Johannesburg — roads are full of potholes, traffic lights do not work, the vandalism of public infrastructure has become so normal that it often happens in daylight, in full view of desensitised residents.
But infrastructure decay is not the only issue confronting our country.
The rule of law is increasingly becoming non-existent, corruption has taken hold in the public and private sector alike, and the quality of basic education is substandard.
Transformation is happening at such a glacial pace that it will take more than a century to redress the injustice of our colonial and apartheid past which set parameters for it.
Unemployment is staggering, and the scourge of gender-based violence and femicide continues to devastate our communities.
These problems, though significant, can be resolved even though this would require limitless commitment, sacrifice and political will.
But one thing which will make it impossible for them to ever be resolved is the erosion of the capacity of democratic institutions, particularly the judiciary.
Democratic institutions such as the judiciary are the bedrock on which the democratic project has been built, and the hope for SA’s future.
Since 1994, our constitutional democracy has been tested many times, particularly under the presidency of Jacob Zuma where the country was almost brought to its knees by the institutionalisation of the worst elements of society.
We survived a worse fate because against all odds, against threats of capture and compromise, democratic institutions such as the judiciary stood firm in defence of our country and its people.
Without a strong judiciary, without strong institutions, SA would no doubt be in a worse state than it now is.
This is why Mkhwanazi’s allegations of judicial capture, in particular, must be given unwavering attention.
It is crucial that we arrive at the truth about whether our judiciary has been compromised by members who may be part of a criminal enterprise which is tearing our country asunder.
We can ill afford to have a judiciary which people cannot trust because that would set parameters for lawlessness on a scale never seen before — and a scale which will inevitably plunge SA, a country which is already limping, into an abyss from which it may never emerge.
History is littered with examples of what happens when democratic institutions, particularly the judiciary, are captured by criminals.
Nowhere is this catastrophe as confronting as it is in Haiti.
No country is immune from what has happened to Haiti.
We are not immune. And if Mkhwanazi’s allegations are true, then we have begun our descent.
The Herald
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