The appointment of South Africa’s new National Director of Public Prosecutions places renewed focus on the future of the country’s criminal justice system at a moment of acute institutional fragility.

In a new policy brief for the New South Institute, Nicole Fritz, Affiliate Researcher in the Reforming Governance, Resisting Capture Programme, argues that while the appointment is critical, it cannot on its own deliver the institutional recovery the NPA urgently requires.

Drawing on the Mokgoro Enquiry, recent court judgments, NPA annual reports, and emerging revelations from the Madlanga Commission, Fritz documents how political capture during the Zuma years corroded the NPA’s independence and internal culture — and how that corrosion has proved remarkably persistent. The cases of Andrew Chauke, the collapse of the Omotoso prosecution, the withdrawal of the Kodwa matter, and the extradition crisis triggered by the Schultz ruling each illustrate a prosecutorial authority still struggling with unclear lines of authority, weak accountability mechanisms, and entrenched resistance to reform.

Central to the brief is the call for a rapid institutional diagnostic (not a new judicial inquiry, but a synthesis of the substantial evidence already on record) to provide the selection panel and candidates with a clear-eyed picture of the NPA’s structural, operational, and ethical condition. Without this baseline, the concept of “fit and proper” remains abstract, disconnected from the specific institutional realities the incoming NDPP will face.

The policy brief concludes with seven concrete steps the Presidency and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development can take to strengthen the process: from commissioning a rapid diagnostic and making the outgoing NDPP’s handover report available to shortlisted candidates, to restructuring interviews to test candidates on institutional recovery, and communicating honestly with the public about the constraints and milestones that should define the next NDPP’s tenure.