On Monday, Mkhwebane appeared and pleaded not guilty to the two counts of perjury that she is facing.
Former Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. Picture: Gallo Images
The first witness is expected to take the stand in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 24 August 2026, when former Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane returns to court following a postponement.
On Monday, Mkhwebane appeared and pleaded not guilty to the two counts of perjury she faces. Initially, she faced three counts, but the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) withdrew one charge in 2021.
The case relates to her investigation into the Absa/Bankorp matter in which she is accused of lying under oath about her meetings with former president Jacob Zuma.
Accountability Now laid a criminal complaint of perjury against Mkhwebane with the Hawks.
This followed the Constitutional Court’s (ConCourt’s) ruling in July 2019 that upheld a Pretoria High Court judgment which found the Public Protector was dishonest about meetings she had with Zuma in affidavits submitted to the High Court and the Pretoria Regional Court in 2017 and 2018.
The ConCourt also ordered that she personally cover 15% of the SARB’s legal costs in the case.
Mkhwebane’s case postponed
On Monday, the court postponed the matter to Tuesday, 25 August, where the first witness is expected to take the stand for cross-examination, according to her legal representation.
“We anticipate that by the end of this week, this matter will be… the State will have finished its case and we will take a decision on what we can foresee,” he said, in a video shared on the MK party’s social media pages.
“From the baseless charges, we will do a Section 174 application, which is an application to have the charges dismissed.”
Mkhwebane called on her supporters to come out in their numbers.
“Today already I have pleaded not guilty to the two remaining charges, charge two and charge three,” she said.
Mkhwebane was impeached before her term ended in September 2025.
This was after the Section 194 Committee adopted the final report that recommended Mkhwebane’s removal to the National Assembly, after she was found guilty of misconduct and incompetence.
She was removed from office after 318 of the 400 MPs voted in favour of the parliament’s Section 194 Committee Report, while 43 voted against it.
At the time, she said she was being targeted for “asking the 31 Phala Phala questions, the CR17 report, the so-called Rogue Unit report and for commenting on the economic impact of the Reserve Bank mandate on the poor”.
