JUDICIAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO CRIMINALITY, POLITICAL INTERFERENCE AND CORRUPTION IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Advocate Johnson is implicated quite seriously in the statement received by the Commission.

“the statement implicates Advocate Johnson quite seriously”

The docket disclosed to the commission was incomplete, comprising only one of two parts, with the second part still being provided and not yet available during the hearing.

“the docket disclosed to us, which we have been working off from yesterday, is incomplete. So it transpires that there are some documents we did not get, and the explanation for that is that the actual docket is actually in two parts. We seem to have been furnished with the one part”

Mr Matlala's constitutional rights override any compulsion by the Commission to give evidence prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings.

“I respectfully submit that when you have a person that is either an accused or a suspect, I respectfully submit that your constitutional rights, with the greatest of respect, overwrite the compulsion that there would be from the Commission's side for him to give evidence”

Mr Matlala's lawyers believe that his constitutional rights cannot be taken away by the Commission during a fact-finding exercise and that evidence from the Commission side may be untruthful or unlawfully obtained.

“we so strongly believe that your constitutional rights, where the Constitution is the most important document in this country, those rights cannot be taken away from you by a Commission who has got a certain mandate and who has, to quote my learned friend, on a fact-finding exercise. And more so, I think what we have done, Chairperson, we have tried to set out to you why we believe that the constitutional rights... potentially, is either not the truth or unlawfully obtained”

Mr Van Wyk is not medically fit to testify today as accepted by counsel and the Commission has agreed on proceeding with evidence presentment today, and postponing the testimony to a later date due to medical unfitness.

“We accept that he is not in a medical state to testify today ... the proposal is that we will use today to put real evidence before the Commission ... and that Mr Van Wyk then, when he is well enough to return, can come back to answer very specific questions”