Five days have passed since acting National Prosecuting Authority head Moketedi Mpshe announced he was dropping fraud and corruption charges against ANC president Jacob Zuma, and that passage of time has done nothing to dispel concerns about that extraordinary step.

Many question marks remain against Mpshe's decision.

One is the weight he attached to recorded conversations between the former heads of the Directorate of Special Operation and NPA. The evidence presented by Mpshe suggests attempts to manipulate the prosecutorial process, but is it in itself enough to have the entire case against Zuma thrown out?

Which leads to another question: why did Mpshe not place this in the hands of the courts instead of using it to set free the man who would be president? Was that evidence legally obtained? How did it get into Zuma's lawyers' hands? Would it stand up in court?

But most importantly: why drop the charges against Zuma when, as Judge Louis Harms stated in NDPP vs Zuma, "a prosecution is not wrongful merely because it is brought for an improper purpose"?

The overwhelming impression left by these and other unanswered questions around this issue is that a grave injustice has been committed.

Mpshe appears to have buckled under pressure from the ANC and, in the process, the rule of law has been savaged. How much confidence can South Africans now have in the NPA? How much confidence, for that matter, in the fight against corruption when Zuma is let off on charges his prosecutors still argue are valid?

As if to ram home the point, Zuma himself clumsily hit out at the judiciary and the Constitutional Court later this week. This from the man who will, in a few weeks, be confirmed as president.

All of which suggests that those of us still clinging to the dream of a new nation have been exposed as hopelessly naive.

Was this the week the new South Africa finally lost its innocence?