Seldom has an individual been so poorly suited or inappropriate for high office as Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. If there is one thing we learnt from the Nkandla scandal it is that the public protector’s office is enormously powerful. As the rulings of the public protector can be overturned only by a court, she in effect has the standing of a judge. Mkhwebane’s short tenure has been filled with controversy, as well as more than enough of two of the three elements the Constitution requires to remove her: misconduct and incompetence. Out of 50 reports she has published since she took over, 10 face or have faced judicial review. The latest one — her astonishing ruling that a tweet by Western Cape Premier Helen Zille, in which Zille stated that colonialism was not all bad, constituted a violation of her constitutional duty — would be funny if there weren’t dozens of violations of the Constitution that would have been more worthy of her attention. The other instances of her miscon...
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