Zuma, Mbeki lawyers call for Khampepe to step aside over bias claims

Lawyers for former Presidents Jacob Zuma and Thabo Mbeki have argued that Chairperson of the TRC Cases Inquiry, Justice Sisi Khampepe, is or is likely to be biased due to positions she has held in the past and therefore must step down.

The inquiry, established in May last year, is probing if there were deliberate efforts to frustrate the investigation and prosecution of apartheid-era human rights violations uncovered at the TRC.

Khampepe, a retired Constitutional Court Judge, previously served as a member of the Amnesty Committee of the TRC and then Deputy National Director of the NPA.

Counsel for Mbeki is Advocate Nyoko Muvangua explains: “Bias could be apprehended because a decision maker who was involved in that process could have been incentivised to defend the integrity of their processes. The TRC recommended prosecutions. The continuum follows, and down the line we are told that there was frustration, and the very same person who recommended prosecutions has to enquire one way or the other about the so-called political interferences. A reasonable person would apprehend that a person who participated in shaping the TRC’s evaluative conclusions and prosecutorial pathways may be perceived as being placed in the position of indirectly assessing the success, failure or derailment of the process in which she played a formative role.”

TRC Cases | Khampepe Commission of Inquiry: 16 January 2026