Jiba says court erred on several counts
Advocate Nomgcobo Jiba says the High Court erred when it struck her from the roll of advocates, arguing it should have merely imposed a condition to ‘remove the cause of (her) unfitness’ to practise. According to a Beeld report, Jiba’s application for leave to appeal against the order of the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in the matter brought by the General Council of the Bar listed several grounds.
According to Jiba, the fraud and corruption charges against Richard Mdluli were withdrawn to allow the police to conclude their investigation. She also claims court erred in finding that she did everything in her power to protect Mdluli as there is no evidence to support such a finding. On the Freedom Under Law matter, in which the court had harsh words for Jiba’s conduct, she says the matter was handled by the NPA’s legal division and not by her as the then acting head of the NPA.
Commercial Crimes head Lawrence Mrwebi also filed his notice of appeal, says another Beeld report. Mrwebi defended his decision to withdraw charges against Mdluli in 2011 by arguing four years have elapsed since then and ‘ still there has been no trial’ despite the reinstatement of charges. Mrwebi says this goes to show that further investigation was needed at the time and is still needed.
In finding that Mrwebi should also be struck from the roll of advocates, the judges held that Mrwebi lied about a note written about his meeting with Gauteng DPP Sibongile Mzinyathi. Mrwebi insists in his notice of appeal that the note was written on 5 December 2011, the day of his meeting with Mzinyathi, and not the day before.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
