The Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) therefore becomes a vital cog in the delivery of justice in this country, hence the objective of granting prosecution all independence from other arms of government. This country's judicial system makes fundamental demands on a professional, resourced and indeed capable DPP. Furthermore, our fight against all forms of illegal acts is dependent on the ability of the state to pursue legal matters in a transparent and satisfactory fashion. The cardinal point of our constitutional dispensation is that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty; so proper justice cannot be delivered unless there is a proper judicial process. The DPP stands at the centre of that process.
A competent defence is fundamental to that. But the judicial process does not commence at the courts but rather at the point of investigation and evidence-collection. Before you can charge anyone you have to conduct thorough investigations. The law enforcement agencies like the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) are key players in this process. In the last few years our nation's collective concern about the failure of investigators to perform their duties effectively has brought some change to the way law enforcement institutions perform their duties. However, while this concern has brought more attention to the law enforcement fraternity perhaps we have neglected the important role that the DPP plays in all this. It is a waste of time for police officers and other investigators to pursue a certain suspect if there is no competent prosecution team to secure a conviction when the case is taken to the courts. It is in fact a waste of taxpayers' money to invest such an amount of resources when at the end of it all an incompetent prosecution will bungle it all through inept administrative oversight. We are alive to the challenges the DPP faces. In the last few years the Directorate has lost talented prosecutors and continues to rely on inexperienced prosecutors with experienced prosecutors overburdened with unrealistic workloads. We do not want to impute any sort of impropriety on the part of those given the responsibility to prosecute. However, the way the DPP has been losing its cases on simple administrative points does not speak well for the DPP. The recent bungling of an appeal on the corruption case against businessman Seyed Abol-fazl Jamali and Deputy Permanent Secretary Victor Rantshabeng is a case in point and the latest in a series of such failures by the DPP. We are not in any way suggesting that the two men were guilty but if every prosecution leads to an acquittal is a sign that there is something seriously wrong with our investigation and prosecution processes. The DPP certainly needs to get its act together if it wants to protect its credibility - and the time is now.
