The NPA is run as a programme within the Department of Justice and the director general of that department, who is not even a member of the NPA, is its official accounting officer. These features of the NPA architecture, either singly or taken together, are not the stuff of which independence is made.

There is a myth in the media and even among some politicians that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is an independent constitutionally created body that has a mandate to prosecute all crime including corruption. While it is so that the mandate exists, the independence of the NPA does not.

Here's why:

Section 179 of the Constitution stipulates that national legislation must ensure that the prosecuting authority exercises its functions "without fear, favour or prejudice". While these criteria fall short of true independence of action, no such national legislation has ever been passed in terms that ensure the independence of the NPA. Under section 32 of the NPA Act all that is required is the following:

"32: Impartiality of, and oath or affirmation by members of prosecuting authority:

"(1) (a) A member of the prosecuting authority shall serve impartially and exercise, carry out or perform his or her powers, duties and functions in good faith and without fear, favour or prejudice and subject only to the Constitution and the law.

"(b) Subject to the Constitution and this Act, no organ of state and no member or employee of an organ of state nor any other person shall improperly interfere with, hinder...