The Madlanga Commission has quietly become one of the most important investigations in post-apartheid South Africa. What began as an inquiry into political killings has expanded into a devastating X-ray of the country’s criminal justice system; exposing fractures so deep that they now threaten the state’s ability to uphold the rule of law. In this episode of SA Explained, Dasen Thathiah and investigative journalist Pule Letshwiti-Jones unpack what the Commission has revealed, why it matters, and what it tells us about South Africa’s future.
At the centre of the Commission lies a question with national consequences: How did South Africa lose control of its crime-fighting machinery? The testimony paints a picture of institutions hollowed out by interference, mistrust, factionalism and competing political interests. One of the clearest examples is the disbanding of the political killings task team; a unit formed to address rising assassinations, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal. Evidence suggests senior SAPS leadership either delayed, undermined or actively prevented progress. Officers testified that they were reassigned at critical moments; cases were stalled; and investigative authority shifted without explanation.
This is not an isolated failure. The Commission heard repeated accounts of Crime Intelligence; the heart of the policing apparatus; being compromised. Testimony described rogue operatives running parallel structures, fabricated intelligence reports, the infiltration of political networks, and the blurring of lines between organised crime and state institutions. The phrase “cartel-like operations” moved from allegation to a recurring theme, culminating in discussions of the so-called “Big
Five Cartel”; a network allegedly spanning corrupt officers, political actors and criminals feeding off state weakness.
Another thread running through the hearings is how whistleblowers have been failed, again and again. Witnesses described fear, intimidation and in some cases the assassination of individuals who attempted to expose wrongdoing. Dasen and Pule explore the chilling implication: a justice system that can’t protect its own witnesses cannot protect its citizens. And when the state cannot guarantee safety for those who step forward, truth becomes optional, and accountability collapses.
The Commission also exposed deep contradictions within SAPS testimony. Senior officials contradicted one another on key decisions: who authorised the task team’s shutdown; why investigators were removed; who controlled intelligence flows; and whether the Presidency’s name was invoked legitimately or as a shield. These contradictions are not administrative hiccups; they point to a leadership crisis where information, authority and responsibility have become weaponised.
Phase 1 and Phase 2 evidence further demonstrate how institutional decay cascades across provinces. While KwaZulu-Natal remains the epicentre of political assassinations, similar patterns emerge in other regions: stalled investigations, politically connected suspects, and sudden changes in case direction whenever high-profile names appear. Pule’s insights illustrate how these patterns confirm what many South Africans have long suspected; the failures are not random, they are structural.
The larger tragedy is not only what has happened inside the justice system, but what has happened to public trust. South Africans increasingly feel they cannot rely on police to investigate crimes impartially, prosecutors to pursue cases effectively, or intelligence structures to operate independently. When trust erodes, communities turn to parallel systems; private security, informal justice, political muscle; which accelerates institutional decline.
Dasen and Pule argue that the Madlanga Commission is important not simply because it exposes corruption, but because it documents a crisis of governance, leadership and accountability across the entire chain of the criminal justice system. The Commission provides a roadmap of what must be fixed: stable leadership, depoliticised policing, a rebuilt Crime Intelligence division, a protected whistleblower ecosystem, and mechanisms to prevent political interference in investigations.
South Africa cannot function with a justice system that is structurally compromised. The Commission is a warning; but it is also an opportunity: a chance to rebuild trust, restore competence and create a justice system worthy of the Constitution it is meant to defend.