Retired Constitutional Court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga urged courts and other institutions fighting corruption to intensify their efforts
Retired Constitutional Court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga has called for tougher action to make corruption hazardous and unprofitable, warning that the theft of public resources undermines constitutional rights.
Delivering the Oliver Tambo Memorial Lecture in Johannesburg on Friday, he urged courts and other institutions fighting corruption to intensify their efforts.
Madlanga challenged the tendency to focus scrutiny on the government while overlooking private individuals and companies that enable and benefit from corruption. “It takes people outside of government and people within public office to have corrupt relationships.”
Honest businesses could face financial ruin or pressure to participate in corrupt practices, he said. Those fighting corruption needed to reduce or remove its profits to discourage participation.
Madlanga, who chairs the commission investigating alleged criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system, placed these failures alongside persistent violence against women as betrayals of Tambo’s legacy.
His address examined the consequences for people whose rights depend on functioning public institutions. Money diverted from public purposes weakened the state’s capacity to fulfil its obligations, leaving poor and vulnerable South Africans most exposed.
“Public resources are not there for one to amass personal wealth and public power is not to be abused for personal gain or private purposes.”
Madlanga drew a distinction between access to public resources and personal entitlement. Office-holders were custodians of institutions and resources belonging to South Africans, with an obligation to preserve and strengthen them for future generations.
Treating public office as a personal possession could erode the democratic legitimacy of the state, suggesting that it belonged to those controlling access to its resources.
“We must preserve the boundary between the person and the office. After all, a person’s incumbency is fleeting, but the office must endure.”
Tambo’s leadership provided the standard against which Madlanga assessed contemporary conduct. He described a man who surrendered a flourishing legal practice and his chosen life in South Africa to establish the ANC’s external mission.
During three decades in exile, Tambo secured international relationships, money and other support for the liberation struggle. His integrity was tested by access to resources that could have financed personal comfort when external oversight was limited.
He understood that custodianship was not ownership, Madlanga said.
The obligation to protect that inheritance also extended to women’s freedom and safety. Gender-based violence and femicide undermined constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality and freedom from violence, contradicting the non-sexist South Africa Tambo had fought for.
Madlanga acknowledged achievements since 1994, explicitly rejecting any suggestion that nothing positive had been delivered. But those gains did not absolve the country of its unfulfilled constitutional obligations.
In the discussion afterwards, he challenged the treatment of women within the justice system. Court processes could compound their suffering by forcing them to relive violations and subjecting them to further indignity.
Courts needed to be sensitive to women’s rights, he said. His criticism placed responsibility on judicial officers as well as the institutions investigating and prosecuting violence.
Madlanga also challenged ordinary people who heard neighbours being assaulted, saw evidence of their injuries and decided the abuse was none of their business. They had a responsibility to act.
Madlanga’s appeal for public participation extended to the defence of democracy. Citizens could hold officeholders accountable through elections, lawful protest, questions, litigation and other constitutional mechanisms.
He recognised the discouragement caused by corruption, weakened state enterprises and institutional paralysis. But withdrawing from democratic life would strengthen those abusing public power.
Protecting the freedoms inherited from earlier generations required citizens to continue exercising them. “We cannot give up on our constitutional inheritance, for that will be
surrendering to those who use state resources and institutions as their own.”