A draft, or a signed instruction? Two IDAC officials on the same manual
Legal commentary
IDAC's Operations Manual governs how the directorate takes in and selects cases. Its stated purpose, on its own face, is "to provide comprehensive guidance and standardisation within IDAC", and Mr Matthew Sesoko's evidence on day 155 described the object of the case-selection provisions as ensuring that "case selection is transparent, objective, auditable, and defensible". Ms Drushantha Ramsamy had earlier placed the same instrument before the Commission on day 151, identifying "the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption Operations Manual" and a "Case Selection Criteria Manual" issued alongside it, and testifying that "the investigation process is supposed to follow a sequence as set out in the SOPs in the case selection criteria directive". The status of that manual is now in dispute between two senior officials of the same directorate. Advocate Khumalo SC put to Mr Sesoko that "Advocate Johnson testified that the manual was just a draft", and spelled out the consequence if that evidence does not hold: "she would have been misleading this Commission", and "at its lightest she would have lied to this Commission". Mr Sesoko's answer was unqualified. "I do not understand why she said that," he testified. "The manual was signed by myself and her." He went further as to its operation: it was, "at her instruction", "distributed to all IDAC staff", and he placed the distribution on "the 22nd of October". His affidavit records that "the operations manual version 2.0 was signed by me as Head of Investigations and Operations". The version history is not itself in dispute and should not be mistaken for one. Mr Sesoko's evidence is that "version 1 was never signed" — "It was a discussion document", the product of "a consultative process" with external consultants — while "the version 2 it is the product of what we agreed on", and "that is when it was signed off". Advocate Khumalo SC's references to a document "signed on 18 December 2023" and to "the current version, 16 October 2024" are consistent with that sequence rather than in conflict with it. What is in conflict is the characterisation. On Mr Sesoko's evidence the manual was a signed instrument, distributed to all staff on the instruction of the head of the directorate. On the evidence put to him as Advocate Johnson's, it was a draft. Those positions cannot both be correct, and the distinction is not academic: whether a prescribed case-selection sequence was in force at a given time bears directly on Advocate Pooe's proposition, also put on day 155, that "there was actual disregard of both your internal operations manual". The Commission has made no finding on either account.
In plain terms
IDAC has a manual that sets out how it is supposed to choose which cases to investigate. The manual says its own purpose is to make case selection "transparent, objective, auditable, and defensible". Two of the directorate's senior people have now given the Commission different accounts of whether that manual was actually in force. Advocate Johnson's evidence, as it was put to Mr Matthew Sesoko, was that the manual "was just a draft". Counsel did not leave the implication unstated: if that is wrong, she "would have been misleading this Commission". Sesoko did not hedge. "I do not understand why she said that," he said. "The manual was signed by myself and her." On his account it was not sitting in a drawer either — it went out to every member of staff, on her own instruction, on 22 October. One thing worth clearing up, because it looks like a contradiction and is not: there are two versions of the manual. The first, from December 2023, was never signed — Sesoko called it "a discussion document". The second, from October 2024, is the one he says he and Advocate Johnson signed. The two dates are two versions, not two answers. The real disagreement is simpler and harder. Was there a rulebook in force telling IDAC how to pick its cases, or was there a draft? It matters because counsel also put to Sesoko that there was "actual disregard" of that manual — and you cannot disregard a rule that was never a rule. The Commission has not decided who is right.
Cited claims
Supporting context