The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) cases inquiry has heard that delays in prosecuting apartheid-era crimes may be linked to internal failures at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
Senior prosecutor Advocate Mthunzi Mhaga has told the inquiry that a lack of investigative capacity severely hampered progress on TRC cases.
He says the decline in prosecutions between 2007 and 2009 was not due to political interference, but institutional dysfunction.
WATCH | As the country reflects on 30 years of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, families raise concerns about delays in prosecuting many cases. Ahmed Timol’s nephew, Imtiaz Ahmed Cajee, says there has been a deliberate attempt to prevent TRC cases from being reopened. pic.twitter.com/R5eZXcvHWt
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The commission is probing allegations that prosecutions were deliberately suppressed, with families of victims still seeking accountability decades later.
Advocate Mhaga has been the head of the Legal Affairs Division in the NPA since 2020 and previously served as a senior state advocate in the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit.
He told the commission: “I have an opinion based on my experience, which informs the conclusion that the lack of progress for the periods that I have mentioned can be attributed to resource constraints. I am referring to the investigative capacity on the cases that I have handled.”
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