Justice Madlanga's commission risks losing public trust as procedural delays, vague medical excuses, and secrecy requests overshadow the urgent investigation into criminal infiltration within South Africa's legal system.

South Africans tuned in to the commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga expecting revelations about criminal syndicates operating inside the country's justice system.

Instead, much of the national conversation has revolved around medical certificates, camera angles and procedural postponements.

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The question increasingly being asked is a simple one: What exactly is this process now about?

Is it about uncovering the alleged infiltration of criminal networks into institutions such as the Hawks, Crime Intelligence and the National Prosecuting Authority? Or has the inquiry begun drifting into a procedural maze where the real issues risk being buried beneath arguments about whether testimony should be heard in camera, whether a witness is too ill to appear, and whether yet another delay is justified?

This commission was established after explosive allegations by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi that criminal syndicates may have penetrated parts of the criminal justice system. Those claims are serious enough to demand urgent and credible scrutiny.

Yet what should be a focused search for truth has, at moments, begun to resemble something else entirely.

None of the procedural questions now dominating the headlines is trivial. Commissions must treat claims of illness with care. Witnesses may legitimately...