MANDY WIENER: Now is the time to overhaul law enforcement

What has been lacking for so long in fixing the police has been the political will to do so, but that shifted yesterday with a demonstration of expediency rarely shown by the President.

Based on the Madlanga Commission’s interim report, he instructed the acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia and the National Commissioner Fannie Masemola to set up a special team to investigate top officers identified by the commission.

Ramaphosa urged haste.

“President Ramaphosa expects all law enforcement agencies and other relevant criminal justice institutions to act with speed in implementing the recommendations of the Commission’s interim report. Such immediate action will help to restore public trust and strengthen operational capacity in the affected state entities tasked with fighting crime and corruption,” the Presidency said in a statement.

The trust relationship with the police has been extensively eroded, and it is hoped that this demonstration of deep cleaning will remedy that.

However, it will now be up to the SAPS leadership to oversee an investigation into its own.

In yet another display of political will, President Ramaphosa and eleven cabinet ministers met with business leaders this week as part of the Government Business Partnership.

It was announced that the partnership’s focus would shift from energy and logistics to fighting crime and corruption.

We have already seen strong success from this collaboration in the energy and logistics arenas, and this shift bodes well for the crime-fighting sector. In a joint statement, they said that “crime and corruption remain among the most significant deterrents to confidence, investment and economic growth.”

While progress has been made in strengthening institutional capability — including through FATF-related reforms and improved coordination — there is agreement that a more ambitious crime and corruption focus is necessary to support the government’s efforts to reform the criminal justice system.

“Tackling organised crime, corruption and weaknesses in the criminal justice system will therefore become a more central focus of the Partnership’s work in 2026, recognising the direct link between the rule of law, societal and investor confidence, and growth.”

This will open the door for more private sector investment in this sphere, where business has already been working to improve forensic skills and digitise.

Business has long demonstrated its willingness to help the government combat crime and corruption, and now that can materially happen.

But where political will is lacking from the government is any tangible effort to establish an independent corruption-busting agency, as required by law, and substantial legislative improvements to protect whistleblowers.

This week, Advocate Paul Hoffman from Accountability Now again made a plea before Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating police corruption to push for the establishment of an independent body to investigate corruption.

He pointed out that, as per the Glenister 2 judgment from the Constitutional Court, this was a legal requirement.

"Our law demands a body outside executive control to deal effectively with corruption,” said Hoffman, urging that now is the right time to make it happen.

With a deeply divided and fractured police service, it may well be an opportune time to set up an independent body to probe corruption that is untainted by the infighting of the SAPS.

The Democratic Alliance has previously introduced the Constitution Twenty-First Amendment Bill, or ‘Anti-Corruption Bill’, which seeks to introduce an Anti-Corruption Commission as an independent, Chapter 9 institution, focusing solely on investigating and prosecuting serious corruption cases.

Similarly, if there is going to be a true commitment to combating corruption, the government must now introduce the much-anticipated legislation encouraging, rewarding and protecting whistleblowers.

Last week ActionSA unveiled The Fallen Whistleblower’s Bill to strengthen whistleblower protection and introduce incentivisation by empowering courts to award between 15% and 25% of recovered funds.

What is evident is that the private sector, civil society, the judiciary and political parties all agree that getting the police service straight and reforming the criminal justice system is an urgent necessity.

The political will for this to happen is crucial to its success.