Pretoria - Legal teams of both suspended national police commissioner General Riah Phiyega and evidence leaders stamped their authority early on as the Claassen Board of Inquiry kicked off in Centurion on Tuesday.
The board is investigating Phiyega’s fitness to hold office, as recommended by the Farlam Commission of Inquiry into the 2012 Marikana massacre.
The first witnesses are due to take the stand on Wednesday morning, but retired Judge Neels Claassen was called on to make two rulings on Tuesday.
He ruled in favour of the evidence leaders on two preliminary points raised by the top cop’s legal team.
Evidence leaders would be allowed to call witnesses who did not testify at the Farlam commission. They could also use evidence that was not utilised during the Farlam commission, he ruled.
This includes the letter written by Phiyega to President Jacob Zuma criticising the commission’s findings on the role she had played on the day of the massacre.
Phiyega’s counsel argued against a request by the evidence leaders, led by advocate Ismail Jamie SC, to bring in more witnesses to testify.
Jamie argued that the terms of reference of the inquiry needed to be broadened. As such, he said evidence leaders would like to determine whether they could recall witnesses who testified during the Farlam commission.
However, advocate William Mokhari SC, for Phiyega, countered that this would extend the scope of the inquiry, and that the inquiry was not about Phiyega’s fitness to hold office, but the findings made in Farlam commission report.
“The evidence leaders are bound by the terms of reference which established this inquiry and therefore are not permitted to call witnesses,” Mokhari said.
He also argued that the evidence leaders should have returned to Zuma if they wished to extend the scope of the inquiry.
“The manner in which the evidence leaders have presented their argument is that you (Judge Claassen) must make your ruling in the abstract. That they are entitled to call witnesses, but it can’t be,” Mokhari argued.
“They must be able to say we have the evidence of the following people and we are asking for a ruling whether we can adduce that evidence because there is an objection to that. They are not doing that,” he said.
But the judge said: “In my view, the concession made by Mr Mokhari that evidence leaders would be entitled to call witnesses is a correct concession. This inquiry is in a nature of a disciplinary inquiry, and in such disciplinary proceedings witnesses will be called by employer and employee.”
Judge Claassen earlier said Mokhari made an allowance that evidence leaders would be entitled to call witnesses.
In so doing, Judge Claassen said witnesses would have to give testimonies that were within the scope of the inquiry and its objectives.
On the second point, Judge Claassen said representations by Phiyega to Zuma following the Farlam commission had completed its task was relevant to the inquiry after she attempted to expunge herself from wrongdoing.
“It would be absurd to suggest that her statement is irrelevant to these proceedings.
“The evidence leaders would be entitled to refer to matters which occurred after the (Marikana) commission,” Judge Claassen said.
The country’s top cop was suspended last year by Zuma after allegations of misconduct contained in the Farlam commission report.
Zuma established the board of inquiry last year after the commission headed by retired Judge Ian Farlam incriminated Phiyega and other senior police officers in the killing of 34 mineworkers in August 16, 2012. The commission investigated the deaths of 44 people who were killed during labour unrest at Lonmin’s platinum mine in Marikana in August 2012.
The evidence leaders are expected to call four witnesses when the hearings resume on Wednesday.
The Farlam Commission had heard that police officers ordered four mortuary vehicles to be on the hills at Marikana, hours before the shootings.
Pretoria News