The story of the rise and fall of Busisiwe Mkhwebane is in many ways a curious and sad one. But it is also, looking beyond the individual, a rare good news story in which the responsible institutions more or less did what they were constitutionally required to do.

On Monday, the National Assembly overwhelmingly voted to remove Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane from office on the grounds of incompetence and misconduct. President Cyril Ramaphosa is now constitutionally required, diligently and without delay, to give effect to this decision.

With this vote, the National Assembly belatedly corrected its calamitous decision to appoint Mkhwebane as Public Protector more than six years ago. But I fear that the political parties who supported Mkhwebane's appointment may well learn the wrong lessons from this fiasco.

Lessons on the appointment of Chapter 9 office bearers

It should not be controversial to point out that the decision by ANC MPs, supported by some opposition party MPs, to appoint Mkhwebane as Public Protector was bad for the office of the Public Protector, bad for the country and its citizens, and, it must be said, ultimately also bad for the politicians who secured her appointment with the aim of using that office to target and discredit their political foes inside and outside the governing ANC.

In the Nkandla judgment, former Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, in full Pentecostal flight, described the Public Protector as "the embodiment of a biblical David... who fights the most powerful and very well-resourced Goliath......