Since the spy allegations against director of national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka were made, resulting into the establishment of the Hefer Commission of inquiry, South Africa has not been the same.

Many things we took as given are being exposed as mirages. Many holy cows previously regarded as sacrosanct and above reproach have been slaughtered in front of our eyes. It began with the startling confession by one Vanessa Brereton that she was the notorious Agent RS452. This was followed by the testimony of former transport minister Mac Maharaj and foreign ministerial special adviser Mo Shaik. South Africans of all hues have been glued to their television sets. Hefer has elbowed out soaps like Days of Our Lives, Generations, etc. I will not dwell on the merits or demerits of the testimonies of different actors as the jury is still out on that matter .

I will deal instead with the related issues around the commission - for instance, the notion that a sizeable number of people have said the commission should never have been set up in the first place .

The events leading up to the establishment of this commission were completely out of hand. We had Deputy President Jacob Zuma being accused, albeit by implication, of bribery and corruption. On the other hand, there was Ngcuka and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna being accused of abuse of power. In addition, Ngcuka was accused of spying for the hated apartheid regime during the late 1980s.

A wild wild west type of situation was developing where people freely and without restraint hurled serious accusations at others.

Is it not abnormal that when we have public figures who are accountable to the SA public having fisticuffs in public we then call on their political organisation to intervene?

I remember vividly in 1996, in the Sharpeville stadium during the ceremonial signing of the our new constitution, a minister came up to me grinning from ear to ear and started lecturing me enthusiastically that we were now a constitutional state and the last word would be with the courts, the highest of which was the Constitutional Court. How true his words were then, and even truer today.

The appointment of the Hefer Commission, although debatable and difficult to comprehend at first, is proving to be the best thing that ever happened to further normalise our society.

For instance the commission has re-affirmed a very important judicial principle, namely that the burden of proof lies with the accuser. In relation to that, we will be held to account for our actions that to accuse people of spying without proof cannot be countenanced and that to withdraw charges against people and still say they have a case to answer borders on recklessness. We must be careful about what we say. As one Reserve Bank governor put it, what we say can affect the rand/dollar exchange!

The commission's proceedings have so far exposed an important factor in the way the media in our country conducts itself. The lessons here are that the media cannot be complicit in political agendas in pursuit of headlines by publishing unverifiable stories of corruption, bribery and spying. The dignity of public figures, contrary to present practice, is not a subject with which to play games.

There are limits to the extent to which the media, which regards itself as a special breed to which the laws of accountability and verification do not apply, can go. I believe that the notion of media objectivity has been stripped bare and the poverty of this theory in the context a modern world ruled by the markets in pursuit of profit and advertisers has been exposed.

The world in which we live in has irrevocably changed and the way in which we do business must also change. The old world where comrades would sit down around the table with a bottle of whisky and try to hammer out their differences is fast disappearing. The days when organisations would intervene to end disputes in the public discourse has shown severe limitations and dangers.

The balance of forces in the society in which we live are largely imposed on us and pretty pre-determined. Therefore to repeat that we must be careful about what we say and do and also be careful about what mechanisms we employ to mediate public disputes nowadays is to state the obvious.

The appointment of the Hefer Commission as a consequence of having a constitutional state marks a turning point in our country. It is another epoch in our long and arduous journey to democratise and normalise our country. From now on our public discourse will be marked by how we conduct ourselves pre-Hefer and post-Hefer.

I daresay the wisdom of appointing this Commission for many people went beyond just investigating spying allegations and abuse of power to defining and refining the type of state we want to have.

With acknowledgements to Vusi Nhlapo and the City Press.