Pretoria - The legal team for axed national director of public prosecutions Vusi Pikoli served papers on the Pretoria state attorney on Tuesday afternoon in a last minute bid to be reinstated.

"The papers will be issued to the court tomorrow [Wednesday]," said Pikoli's attorney Aslam Moosajee.

He said it was not known when the matter would be heard as the state would still need to respond.

Earlier on Tuesday, Parliament ratified Vusi Pikoli's dismissal but he immediately hit back.

'Pikoli had no such luck'

Vote in favour

The National Council of Provinces (NCOP) voted in favour of a report by a parliamentary committee that approved his dismissal by President Kgalema Motlanthe, days after the National Assembly did so.

Within minutes of the vote, Pikoli moved to challenge the decision in court and ask that he be reinstated as head of the National Prosecuting Authority.

His legal team said they were petitioning the Pretoria High Court to set aside the dismissal on the grounds that it was not rational and violated the constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence and the principles of legality.

Pikoli maintains that he was suspended by former president Thabo Mbeki in September 2007 in a bid to stop the prosecution of now suspended national police commissioner Jackie Selebi for corruption.

But in a charged debate in the NCOP, African National Congress members argued that Motlanthe had no choice but to fire him for being insensitive to national security issues.

rightly dismissed


Khosi Mokoena, who co-chaired the ad hoc review committee, told the legislature that he was rightly dismissed for overruling Mbeki's concerns that arresting Selebi could destabilise South Africa.

"Even after the president requested two weeks to make the necessary arrangements... Advocate Pikoli refused and told the president he was giving him only seven days.

"This attitude shows a lack of respect for the president's constitutional duty to maintain national security and stability," he said.

"It will be in the best interest of the country and even of Advocate Pikoli to remove him from the sensitive position of national director of public prosecutions."

Fellow ANC MP Faith Mazibuko said Pikoli's insistence that he was sidelined for prosecuting Selebi and ANC leader Jacob Zuma showed that "despite the fact that he is an educated man he remains stupid".

Integrity beyond doubt

The opposition protested that Pikoli's integrity was beyond doubt and that he must be reinstated in line with the recommendations of the Ginwala Inquiry, which found late last year that he was fit for office.

Motlanthe declined to do so, citing secondary remarks in her report that Pikoli may have undermined national security as grounds for the dismissal.

The Democratic Alliance's Wilhelm le Roux said the ANC had been "brutal" in their treatment of one of the party's "finest members", while rewarding the unethical behaviour of members like Carl Niehaus, who has admitted to resorting to fraud to cover spiralling private debt.

"Pikoli had no such luck but was humiliated and suspended," Le Roux said.

Motlanthe is now in a position to appoint a new prosecutions director, who will inherit responsibility for the protracted, politically fraught corruption case against Zuma.

But Pikoli has warned the president not to appoint a successor while he fights for his job in court. - Sapa


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With acknowledgements to Sapa and Independent Online.