Madlanga commission marks a year with 188 witnesses and no final report yet
The inquiry into criminality in the criminal justice system has heard a year of testimony, and its chair says the allegations point to a system that has been penetrated.
A year of testimony into criminality inside South Africa’s police, prosecuting authority and intelligence services has produced no findings yet, and the man chairing the inquiry says the evidence points to a system that has been penetrated by criminal elements.
Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, chairperson of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, delivered an opening statement on Thursday as the commission marked one year since its first hearings. The commission was announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2025.
“With the revelations that are coming out, we trust that justice will be served,” Madlanga said.
What the commission was set up to test
The inquiry was established after the KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, made a series of serious allegations about an alleged criminal syndicate that has spread influence into law enforcement agencies, the National Prosecuting Authority and the intelligence services. Mkhwanazi was the first to give testimony at the commission.
Madlanga said the revelations before the commission are commendable because they may help stem the tide. He also said they have been painful.
“What is painful though is that this apparent criminality suggests that for some time now, our criminal justice system has been populated by malleable, corrupt state functionaries,” he said.
He put the consequence plainly: where state functionaries can be improperly influenced, the criminals who exert that influence rarely answer for their deeds. He asked, rhetorically, how many such criminals have escaped facing charges and sanctions over the years.
What the evidence shows so far
Madlanga was careful to state the limits of where the commission stands. The commission has not yet assessed all the evidence and will make definitive determinations only in its final report.
Even so, he said the trends emerging from the evidence indicate serious criminality within the criminal justice system, arising from the infiltration of and undue influence on that system by elements of criminality.
He pointed to a concrete marker: a number of players within the criminal justice system have been charged criminally, some have been dismissed from their employment, and others face disciplinary charges. That, he said, lends credence to the indications before the commission.
“We trust that in the end this process will yield results that will play a meaningful role towards putting in place mechanisms that will help significantly towards curbing a recurrence of apparent criminality of the nature that is emerging before the Commission.”
What the commission has asked for, and what it will produce
The commission’s stated aim is to recommend mechanisms that would make a recurrence of this kind of criminality significantly harder. That work is not finished. The commission is still hearing evidence, and its findings will arrive in a final report.
Madlanga thanked the people and institutions that have supported the process, and said he would thank them all when it concludes. He noted that the overwhelming public support for the commission has not gone unnoticed.
The next dated step
The commission continues to hear evidence. Its final report, which will carry its definitive determinations, is still to be delivered, and no date for it appears in the record of Thursday’s proceedings.
This report is drawn from the official account of Justice Madlanga’s opening statement published by SAnews, the South African Government News Agency. The full statement is available at https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/we-trust-justice-will-be-served-justice-madlanga
Source: SAnews (South African Government News Agency), ‘We trust that justice will be served’ - Justice Madlanga
