Justice department director-general Menzi Simelane is taking the fall after the government’s failure to make its case against suspended national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli.

Former speaker of the National Assembly Frene Ginwala criticised Simelane in her report into Pikoli’s fitness for office, released yesterday.

Ginwala said she had found Simelane’s conduct “highly irregular” and that it “left much to be desired”. “His personal views informed the complaints against Pikoli that formed part of the government’s submission to the inquiry,” Ginwala said.

Neither former president Thabo Mbeki nor former justice minister Brigitte Mabandla testified at the Ginwala hearings. Instead, Simelane and director-general in the Presidency Frank Chikane were grilled in cross-examination.

Although President Kgalema Motlanthe was silent yesterday on Mbeki and Mabandla’s handling of the Pikoli matter, he noted Ginwala’s findings on Simelane, saying: “once the honesty of (a) DG is called into question” it needed to be investigated.

“I have also ... requested the minister of justice ... to follow the matter up, in line with the Public Service Act and relevant regulations” Motlanthe said.

While it was Mbeki who suspended Pikoli over an alleged irretrievable breakdown in the relationship between the National Prosecuting Authority head and Mabandla, it was Simelane who drafted the government’s submissions to the inquiry.

Ginwala said: “What is curious and concerning is that these submissions dealt with wider issues than those indicated in the letter of suspension . Some of the matters (in which Pikoli was implicated) are, in relation to the date of suspension, so remote that the inference is that (Simelane) must have intended to throw a wide net to try to make something stick to Pikoli.”

Simelane had also drafted the letter from Mabandla instructing Pikoli not to go ahead with the arrest of national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

It was this letter that precipitated the crisis — Pikoli saw it as an unconstitutional instruction *1 and refused to obey it. Mabandla then asked him to resign.

Ginwala said Mabandla had to take responsibility for the letter since she signed it. Mabandla had submitted to the inquiry that the letter was not intended to instruct Pikoli to stop Selebi’s arrest.

Ginwala said: “Assuming this is correct, the conduct of (Simelane) in drafting the document in the manner it reads is reckless .”

In responding to the findings of the Ginwala report, Pikoli’s lawyers accused the former speaker of being “unduly protective of the minister and the president”.

When pressed on what action would be taken against Simelane, Motlanthe said he deserved the benefit of “due process”.

Justice spokesman Zolile Nqayi said Simelane would not comment on the report and referred the matter to Justice Minister Enver Surty, who would comment today.

With acknowledgements to Franny Rabkin, Hajra Omarjee and Business Day.