The unfolding legal saga around Moroadi Cholota, once a trusted aide to Ace Magashule, has grown into a mirror reflecting the cracks in the National Prosecuting Authority’s own house. What’s playing out isn’t just about one woman facing charges; rather, it’s a test of the system’s honesty and respect for the rules meant to govern it.
The NPA’s insistence that it simply made an “oversight” error when it added four fraud charges to Cholota’s charge sheet, despite the extradition agreement with the United States forbidding this, sounds less like a mistake and more like a shrug in the face of a serious breach.
State prosecutor Advocate Johan de Nysschen says, “That is the end of the matter.” I disagree.
Meant to avoid surprise charges
It is not a trivial problem either. The so-called “speciality doctrine” in extradition law isn’t some technicality: it’s the very foundation ensuring that when a country hands someone over, it does so with the understanding that the person won’t face surprise charges. To break that promise and then later sweep it under the rug as an administrative error is to treat due process as an inconvenience. It chips away at the dignity of the court and the integrity of all our legal proceedings.
Even more troubling is what happened after the blunder came to light. Cholota has already pleaded not guilty to those fraud charges. The NPA’s belated attempt to just withdraw them and move on, as if the courtroom were their private boardroom and the judge a mere spectator, is cringeworthy. Once an accused has entered a plea, South African law is clear: the process must go on to a verdict. It’s not up to the prosecution to decide when the music stops. When Judge Phillip Loubser called out the NPA’s move, it was a necessary reminder that the courts—not the prosecutors—are the ultimate guardians of justice.
Bully tactics
The whole episode takes on a darker hue when we consider how Cholota went from star witness to alleged criminal. She says that as soon as she pushed back against pressure to implicate Magashule, the gloves came off—she found herself on the receiving end of threats from South African police and FBI agents, ultimately leading to the very charges now in dispute. Notably, none of the earlier commissions or investigations ever pointed fingers at her; these new charges appeared only after she refused to “play ball”. That timing looks less like a coincidence and more like a warning to anyone who dares resist the prosecution’s script.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Cholota’s sense of being a pawn in a larger game has only been tacitly confirmed by the NPA’s own admission of “oversight”. Instead of clearing the air, it throws more fuel onto suspicions that the State is using its might not just to pursue justice but to punish or coerce those it cannot control using a court of law.
As things stand, the only certainty is that the four fraud charges—illegally tacked on—will not stand, and Cholota will be acquitted on those. But the damage is done. She may yet win a permanent stay of prosecution on the remaining charges if the court agrees that the process has been so tainted as to become an abuse of power.
And who could blame her for seeking redress, maybe even through civil claims, for the reputational and financial ruin—all consequences of a process that seems to have veered dangerously off course?
NPA credibility at stake
The outcome of this case will reverberate far beyond the walls of the Bloemfontein High Court. It’s not simply about Moroadi Cholota or even Ace Magashule. At stake is the credibility of the NPA and, by extension, the faith of South Africans in the promise that the law is even-handed—even when the stakes are high and the politics even higher.
As the court prepares to decide whether it has jurisdiction to try Cholota at all, it also weighs the integrity of our justice system itself. In this battle, the real verdict may not be about her guilt or innocence but about the system’s soul.
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