For starters, in 2019 two appointments to the Constitutional Court will have to be made now that interviews for the vacancies have been set down in April by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Once the JSC has provided five names, President Cyril Ramaphosa will have his first opportunity to make the two appointments to our highest court.

Given that the extended jurisdiction afforded to the court has given rise to hearings on complex matters that are not related to the Constitution, it will be interesting to see whether the new appointees will bring much-needed commercial, company, and contractual expertise to the Court as well as getting a sense of the constitutional vision that the president considers is necessary to be elevated to the Court.

In May, the longest-running soap opera since The Sopranos will recommence when Jacob Zuma’s revamped and possibly slimmer legal team, given that the taxpayer is not going to redistribute further funds to the Bar, apply for a permanent stay. Rumours circulating in the legal profession suggest that all the old conspiracy theories suitably microwaved for 2019 will be raised in an effort to ensure that Mr Zuma does not have his day in court. One suspects that, no matter the judgment in the High Court, this application will land up in the Constitutional Court, via the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Talking of enthusiastic litigators, Tom Moyane is waiting to see whether his appeal against his removal from office as the Commissioner of the South African Revenue Service will be heard by the Constitutional Court.

Unquestionably, however, the most important issue for the future of the legal system in 2019 will be whether the recently appointed head of the National Prosecuting Authority, Shamila Batohi, will be able to turn the NPA around. In turn that will depend on whether any of the most egregious of the State Capture cases are brought to court.

In 2018 the NPA provisionally withdrew the prosecution in the Vrede Dairy case after scoring a series of legal own goals. The country waits to see whether the prosecution will be reinstated, just as it waits to see whether anyone is brought to legal book in 2019 for a litany of alleged criminal activity loosely described as State Capture.

At the same time, the Steinhoff saga remains unresolved. It appeared that the now disgraced Markus Jooste had lawyered himself up with a coterie of leading senior counsel; to date, they have not been needed, certainly not insofar as the South African criminal justice system is concerned.

But the Steinhoff case is important for the legitimacy of the South African legal system; one cannot call for the Guptas and the Zuptas to be prosecuted and ignore a monumental corporate collapse as was Steinhoff. That would be to perpetuate a one-eyed criminal justice system.

There is a common factor between many of the State Capture transactions and the Steinhoff debacle. In all of these cases, a significant level of commercial expertise will be required to sustain a successful prosecution. It is not easy to deconstruct intricate accounting frauds nor complex financial flows routed through myriad corporate entities, each located in a different jurisdiction.

On the precedent of the Shabir Shaik trial, which admittedly was a far more simple money flow than the cases that now need to be brought to court by the NPA, the prosecution of Jacob Zuma by Billy Downer SC and his team is in excellent hands.

But the NPA bench is hardly strong. It simply does not have the requisite expertise to run successful Zupta or Steinhoff prosecutions. These cases are going to need expert and highly experienced forensic accountants who can track disguised money flows and the ways of creative accounting. It will require corporate attorneys who know how to run cases of financial fraud as well as advocates who can “follow the money” in these kinds of transactions.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has often stressed the need for a national partnership between the State and the private sector if the country is to be turned around. The head of the NPA should heed this call and reach out to the large accounting firms (given the previous record of some, they owe the nation much service) and the large law firms to make serious resources available for this purpose.

If additional money is required so that the NPA can brief a series of the best commercial silks and juniors to head the teams, then so be it. If the NPA can make a strategic decision, for example, as to which three critical cases they can commence and ensure the necessary private/NPA partnership, by 2020 the country may be closer to re-establishing the principle of accountability. Without such imagination, the present impunity will continue. DM