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[2026] ZAGPPHC 404
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Manamela v National Commissioner, South African Police Services and Others (2026-096408) [2026] ZAGPPHC 404 (18 May 2026)
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IN THE HIGH COURT
OF SOUTH AFRICA
(GAUTENG DIVISION,
PRETORIA)
Case
No. 2026-096408
(1)
REPORTABLE:
YES
/
NO
(2)
OF INTEREST TO OTHER JUDGES:
YES
/
NO
(3) REVISED
DATE: 18 May 2026
SIGNATURE:
In
the matter between:
SEMAKALENG
DAPHNEY MANAMELA
APPLICANT
And
THE
NATIONAL COMMISSIONER, SOUTH AFRICAN
POLICE
SERVICES
FIRST
RESPONDENT
THE
MINISTER OF POLICE
SECOND
RESPONDENT
MAJOR
GENERAL ZEPH MKHWANAZI
THIRD
RESPONDENT
ADVOCATE
LEON HALGRYN SC
FOURTH
RESPONDENT
ADVOCATE
K MILLARD
FIFTH
RESPONDENT
ADVOCATE
H CASSIM
SIXTH
RESPONDENT
Coram:
Millar
J
Heard
on:
14
May 2026
Delivered:
18
May 2026 - This judgment was handed down electronically by
circulation to the parties' representatives by email,
by being
uploaded to the
CaseLines
system of the GD and
by release to SAFLII. The date and time for hand-down is deemed
to be 09H00 on 18 May 2026.
JUDGMENT
MILLAR J
[1]
This is an application in which the
applicant (Ms Manamela) seeks an order that the first respondent, the
National Commissioner
of SA Police Service (National Commissioner) is
held in contempt of a court order granted in this Court on 11 October
2024.
In addition, an order is also sought that the National
Commissioner be sentenced to a period of imprisonment suspended, and
subject
to the non-establishment of a board of inquiry into the
purported misconduct of Ms Manamela.
[2]
The relevant paragraph of the court order
germane to these proceedings reads as follows:
“
The
first respondent is interdicted and restrained from convening and
conducting a Board of Inquiry on 14 to 18 October 2024 and
on 18 to
22 November 2024, pending the hearing and determination of the
ongoing appeal processes under SCA Case number 928/24 and/or
review
application under case number 2024/06489.”
[3]
The circumstances under which the interdict
was granted are that Ms Manamela, a Lieutenant General in the South
African Police Service
(SAPS) and Provincial Commissioner for the
Province of Mpumalanga, faced charges of misconduct. These
charges are said to
concern inter alia the acceptance of gifts worth
approximately R298 000.00 from SAPS semi-official funds and the
approval
of unlawful promotions of officials with pending criminal
corruption cases.
[4]
Two sets of charges have been
preferred against Ms Manamela. The first set of charges and the
establishment of the board which
was to conduct an inquiry into these
formed the subject matter of the first of the two cases referred to
in the court order of
11 October 2024. The first set of
charges, the initial charges and the board to inquire into them, by
the time the interdict
was granted on 11 October 2024, were the
subject of proceedings in the Supreme Court of Appeal under case
number 928/24.
Thereafter, additional charges (the second set
of charges) were preferred, and it is in respect of these additional
charges that
the review proceedings, said to be under case number
2024/06489 were brought.
[5]
Once the proceedings in the Supreme Court
of Appeal had concluded, an application was then brought to the
Constitutional Court by
Ms Manamela. It suffices to state that
she was unsuccessful in the Supreme Court of Appeal and that the
Constitutional Court
dismissed her final application for leave to
appeal on 2 March 2026.
[6]
The review proceedings relating to the
additional charges remain extant.
[7]
The present proceedings have been brought,
ostensibly on the basis that on a proper reading of the court order
granted on 11 October
2024, no board of inquiry can be constituted to
conduct any inquiries in respect of Ms Manamela unless and until the
review proceedings
have also been concluded.
[8]
After the decision of the Constitutional
Court on 2 March 2026, the National Commissioner proceeded to convene
the board of inquiry
to deal with the initial charges in respect of
which the legal proceedings had now been finalized. The board
was set to convene
for the week of 4 to 8 May 2026 but was prevented
from doing so when on 28 April 2026, the present application was
launched.
In consequence of the present proceedings, the
convening of the board was postponed to the week of 25 to 29 May
2026.
[9]
It is the case for Ms Manamela that the
court order of 11 October 2024 properly interpreted means that no
board of inquiry can be
convened until the review proceedings have
been finalized. It is not in issue between the parties that the
review proceedings
will not be finalized in the foreseeable future.
[10]
It
is no co-incidence that Ms Manamela’s term of office will
expire on 30 June 2026 and that if the board of inquiry scheduled
for
25 to 29 May 2026 does not proceed, the opportunity to conduct an
inquiry in terms of sections 8 and 9 of the South African
Police
Service Act
[1]
will be lost. The board of inquiry which the SAPS seeks to
convene is a statutory board which is convened during the term
of
office of the person in respect of whom the inquiry is to be
conducted. In other words, a board of inquiry may only be
convened for Ms Manamela while she is in office as the Provincial
Police Commissioner for Mpumalanga.
[11]
While Ms Manamela contends for the
interpretation that she does of the court order, the first, third and
fourth respondents (the
SAPS) contend that, having regard to the
imminent end of her term in office, the present proceedings are
nothing more than another
step to delay the board of inquiry.
The SAPS contends that there have been 14 separate incidents where Ms
Manamela has utilized
legal proceedings to delay and frustrate the
disciplinary process.
[12]
In this regard, the steps and timeline
about which the SAPS complain, inclusive of what has been set out
above, are:
[12.1]
23 February 2023 – Initial charges were preferred against Ms
Manamela.
[12.2]
24 February 2023 – Ms Manamela was suspended.
[12.3]
23 March 2023 – Review launched.
[12.4]
18 September 2023 – Set down – initial charges of serious
misconduct served
on Ms Manamela.
[12.5]
October 2023 – The board of inquiry scheduled to commence;
proceedings are halted
following litigation initiated by Ms Manamela,
and postponed
sine die
pending review proceedings.
[12.6]
2023–2024 – Ms Manamela prosecutes a review application
(“the first
review application”) challenging the
establishment of the board.
[12.7]
5 April 2024 – The High Court dismisses the first review
application with costs.
[12.8]
23 July 2024 – Application for leave to appeal is dismissed.
[12.9]
2024 (SCA) – Petition to the Supreme Court of Appeal is
unsuccessful.
[12.10]
2024–2026 – Application for leave to appeal to the
Constitutional Court is pursued.
[12.11]
2 March 2026 – The Constitutional Court dismisses the
application for leave to appeal.
All challenges to the initial
charges are thereby finally exhausted.
[12.12]
16 May 2024 – A separate set of additional charges is served,
giving rise to a second review
application (still pending), which
does not concern the initial charges.
[12.13]
27 March 2026 – Following the exhaustion of appeal processes,
the board of inquiry is set
down to proceed on the initial charges.
[12.14]
28 April 2026 – Ms Manamela launches the present application.
[13]
Are
the SAPS in contempt
[2]
for convening a board of inquiry in respect of the original charges?
[14]
There is no dispute between the parties
that the SAPS knows of the order and its terms. The SAPS
argues that since the
board of inquiry that it has convened relates
only to the initial charges and not to the additional charges, it
cannot be said
that it is not complying with the order or that it is
willful or acting with
mala fides
in
the approach that it has taken.
[15]
Ms Manamela argues that the order granted
on 11 October 2024 is to be read conjunctively – in other words
both the SCA proceedings
and the review proceedings would have to be
finalized before the board of inquiry can be convened. The SAPS
on the other
hand argue that such an interpretation is illogical and
is in effect contrived and self-serving.
[16]
It
is by now trite that court orders are to be interpreted in a manner
which is sensible
[3]
and consonant with the purpose of the document. Regarding court
orders specifically, the Supreme Court of Appeal in
Finishing
Touch 163 (Pty) Ltd v BHP Billiton Energy Coal South Africa Ltd,
[4]
stated the following:
“
[13]
As indicated earlier in the judgment, the determination of this
appeal depends on the proper
interpretation of the Preller J order.
The starting point is to determine the manifest purpose of the
order. In interpreting
a judgment or order, the court’s
intention is to be ascertained primarily from the language of the
judgment or order in accordance
with the usual well-known rules
relating to the interpretation of documents. As in the case of
a document, the judgment or
order and the court’s reasons for
giving it must be read as a whole in order to ascertain its
intention. See. Firestone
South Africa (Pty) v Genticuro AG
1977 (4) SA 298
(A).
[14]
It is necessary to place the Preller J order in proper perspective
and to examine
its terms and purpose in order to determine the
intention of the learned judge when he used the word ‘initiate’.
In so doing one has to consider the context in which the order was
made. It is not in dispute that there were two competing
rights
that required to be settled without delay, viz, BHP’s
entitlement to a prospecting permit on the one hand and Finishing
Touch’s prospecting rights granted on 19 and 22 September 2006,
on the other. It was imperative that the dispute be
resolved.”
[17]
What is in issue is whether the order
properly construed permits of a reading in terms of which a lower
court may pre-emptively
interdict a party from enforcing rights in
respect of which the apex court has finally ruled. In this
regard, Ms Manamela
relies on the
“
and/or”
and seeks an interpretation in terms of
which the
“
/or”
is omitted or disregarded
.
The SAPS for its part, contends that
properly interpreted, each of the separate proceedings referred to in
the order of 11 October
2024 while pending at that time, and thus
both subject to interdict, and could at that time be referred to
conjunctively, could
not once one of the proceedings was concluded to
finality – the SCA proceedings which were finally dismissed by
order of
the Constitutional Court.
[18]
It
seems to me to be self-evident that the interpretation contended for
by Ms Manamela cannot be accepted as a sensible interpretation
of the
order. To do so would be to invert the hierarchy of our
courts. Regarding the Constitutional Court and in respect
of
whose order the initial charges are concerned, section 167(3)(a) of
the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
[5]
explicitly states that:
“
The
Constitutional Court –
(a)
Is the highest Court of the
Republic;”
[19]
The court order of 11 October 2024 must, it
seems to me, as a matter of common sense for the reasons I have set
out above, be interpreted
in a manner contended for by the SAPS.
[20]
Having found that the court order of 11
October 2024 is to be interpreted in a manner which does not preclude
the convening of a
board of inquiry in respect of the initial
charges, it follows that the application to hold the National
Commissioner in contempt
must fail.
[21]
Ms Manamela had one final arrow in her
quiver in regard to the interdict sought. It was this –
she had on 6 February
2023 made an application for legal assistance
at the board of inquiry relying on National Instruction 1 of 2017 (NI
1/2017).
[22]
NI 1/2017 states that its purpose is to
regulate the payment of legal representation
“
in
criminal matters or at inquiries referred to in paragraph 12 of this
instruction”
. The reference
to paragraph 12 is an error as it is only paragraph 11 which deals
with inquiries. Central to the provision
of legal assistance is
where representation at the inquiry is necessary
“
in
order to protect the interests of the Service.”
It was argued by the SAPS that the purpose of
legal assistance in inquiry proceedings is institutional and to
protect the Service
from adverse findings made by an external body.
This it was argued was entirely consistent with the entities listed
in paragraph
11(1) in NI 1/2017 such as IPID, the Public Protector,
Commissions of Inquiry and formal inquests. These are all
external
oversight or investigative bodies before which the SAPS’s
conduct, and reputation are at stake.
[23]
In any event, Ms Manamela has taken no
steps for some 3 years to pursue this application and it is not open
to her now to seek to
interdict the board of inquiry from being
convened because she has not asserted her rights to compel a
response. In this
regard, her conduct, having regard to
paragraph [12] above and the various steps she took to assert her
rights, it is quite inexplicable.
[24]
In summary then – firstly, the court
order of 11 October 2024 properly construed cannot be read as though
the SCA proceedings
and review proceedings referred to in it had been
consolidated and that one could not proceed in the absence of the
finalization
of the other. To interpret it this way is entirely
contrived and self-serving. Secondly, Ms Manamela has not made
out
a case for an interdict in respect of the board of inquiry in
respect of the initial charges. She has failed to establish
a
right to personal legal representation before a board of inquiry
convened by her employer into her conduct during the course
and scope
of her employment. Absent such a right, no interdict can be
granted, and I need not deal with the other requirements.
[25]
Turning finally to the question of costs.
The SAPS contend that costs should be awarded on a punitive scale
which costs are
to include the costs consequent upon the engagement
of two counsel. It was submitted and I agree that such costs
are warranted
for the following reasons:
[25.1]
The present application represents the latest in a series of
proceedings brought to delay
the board of inquiry. All the
previous proceedings, with the excepting of the outstanding review
application have been unsuccessful
but have had the consequence of
causing a three-year delay such that the board of inquiry can only be
convened a month shy of the
end of Ms Manamela’s contract.
[25.2]
The application to hold the National Commissioner in contempt is
entirely contrived and
self-serving and was brought for the sole
purpose of bringing the National Commissioner into disrepute as part
of a course of conduct
in litigation, the purpose of which is to
delay the board of inquiry.
[26]
In the circumstances, I make the following
order:
[26.1]
The application is dismissed.
[26.2]
The applicant is ordered to pay the costs of the first, third and
fourth respondents
on the scale as between attorney and client, such
costs are to include the costs consequent upon the engagement of two
counsel.
A MILLAR
JUDGE
OF THE HIGH COURT
GAUTENG DIVISION,
PRETORIA
HEARD ON:
14 MAY 2026
JUDGMENT DELIVERED ON:
18 MAY 2026
COUNSEL FOR THE
APPLICANT:
ADV. T GOVENDER
INSTRUCTED BY:
THAPELO KHARAMETSANE
ATT.
REFERENCE:
MR. T KHARAMETSANE
COUNSEL FOR THE FIRST,
THIRD AND
FOURTH RESPONDENTS:
ADV. M MOJAPELO SC
ADV.
L MUKOME
INSTRUCTED BY:
STATE ATTORNEY,
PRETORIA
REFERENCE:
MS. C CORY
[1]
68
of 1995.
[2]
Fakie
NO v CCII Systems (Pty) Ltd
[2006] ZASCA 52
;
2006 (4) SA 326
(SCA) at para
[42]
and
Pheko
and Others v Ekhuruleni
City
2015 (5) SA 600
(CC) at para [33].
[3]
Natal
Joint Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality
2012 (4) SA 593
(SCA) at para [18].
[4]
(363/11)
[2012] ZACSA 49 (30 March 2012).
[5]
1996.