The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ruled that the warrant of arrest for Norma Mngoma and its execution by the Hawks was unlawful.

News24 notes that Judge Cassim Sardiwalla – in a lengthy judgment handed down yesterday – made the following order: Norma Mngoma's application is granted on an urgent basis; the decision to apply for the warrant of arrest is unlawful; the decision of Hawks officials to execute the warrant of arrest is unlawful.

In addition, the court ordered that the confiscation of her information and communication technology equipment was unlawful and as a result the Hawks have been ordered to restore all information unlawfully removed from her equipment.

Lastly, the Hawks were directed to return the information which was downloaded from her electronic gadgets. Mngoma challenged her arrest by the, arguing that it was nothing more than a ‘favour for her husband’, former Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.

The court previously heard that, in addition to contending that Mngoma was arrested as part of an unlawful scheme by the Hawks to seize her devices and delete material from them, her Advocate Dali Mpofu argued that ‘another motive might have been to punish’ or ‘teach her a lesson’ for daring to confront him and his questionable ‘friends who apparently aided and abetted his nefarious activities in all spheres’. 

Full News24 report

The two officers who arrested Mngoma ‘abused their powers and position’ in the Hawks, the judge said.

Sardiwalla was scathing in his critique of the actions of Hawks Captain Kenneth Mavuso and Sergeant Norton Ndabambi. He said their explanation for the Hawks’ involvement in the matter was not sustainable. The Hawks are mandated to investigate serious and high priority crimes.

According to a Sunday Times Daily report, Mavuso had said in court papers he and Ndabambi were both members of a special task team that had been created to deal specifically with cases of conspiracy to commit murder.

‘During June 2020 the former Minister ... laid a complaint under oath that he has reason to believe, and that he had been informed, that there is a conspiracy to kill him. This complaint was directed to the task team to investigate.’

This was how his unit came to be involved with Gigaba, said Mavuso.

When further allegations were made, it ‘was logical that our task team decided to investigate these offences as well ... to establish whether there was any link to the complaint of the conspiracy to commit murder’, said Mavuso.

But Sardiwalla said the Hawks’ evidence on this score, and on how Mngoma was related to it all, was ‘vague’ and there was no evidence that the operation in respect of Gigaba was sanctioned by Hawks head Godfrey Lebeya.

‘It is clear that this is in fact a domestic dispute between two prominent members of society. However the offences are not deserving of the high priority of the Hawks,’ he said.

Instead, the involvement of the Hawks ‘speaks to the abuse of power by Mr Gigaba as a former Minister in using the state administration for his own personal benefit with an intention to intimidate his wife in a domestic spat’, said the judge.