The Madlanga Commission Explained: What It Investigates, Who Chairs It, and When It Reports

The Madlanga Commission Explained: What It Investigates, Who Chairs It, and When It Reports

The Madlanga Commission is the judicial commission of inquiry into criminal syndicates inside South Africa’s criminal justice system. It sits for long hours, most of its testimony is streamed, and it has produced interim findings that have already been sent to the President.

This page is the standing reference: what the commission is, what its terms of reference cover, how its reports work, where the hearings stand now, and how to follow them.

What it is

It is a commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Xola Madlanga, a former justice of the Constitutional Court. It was established in 2025. It sits as a judicial inquiry, which means it takes evidence under oath, it can compel witnesses, and it reports to the President rather than to a department.

What its terms of reference cover

The commission’s own terms of reference say it is appointed to investigate and report on the veracity, scope and extent of allegations about the infiltration of law enforcement, intelligence and associated institutions within the criminal justice system by criminal syndicates, and to make findings and recommendations for criminal prosecutions, disciplinary action and institutional reform.

In practice that means it inquires into:

  • Whether criminal syndicates have infiltrated, or exert undue influence over, the South African Police Service, the Johannesburg, Ekurhuleni and Tshwane metro police departments, the National Prosecuting Authority, the State Security Agency, members of the judiciary, and the Department of Correctional Services.
  • The nature, extent and consequences of that infiltration, including the facilitation of organised crime, the suppression of investigations, corruption, the intimidation of witnesses, and the targeted removal of officials.
  • The role of senior officials who may have aided it, failed to act on intelligence about it, or benefited from it.
  • Whether the oversight bodies did their job, and whether the laws and institutions in place are adequate to prevent it.

How its reports work

The terms of reference allow the commission to hand interim reports to the President before it finishes, and clause 10.4 allows it to make recommendations and referrals in those interim reports. The Presidency has published that the President received a second interim report with recommendations and referrals. That is how commission findings reach the police, the prosecuting authority and disciplinary processes while the hearings continue.

The commission also publishes its own material, including its terms of reference, on its official site at criminaljusticecommission.org.za. If you want the primary documents rather than reporting about them, that is where to go.

Where the hearings stand

Hearings have run in blocks, with parts of the evidence taken behind closed doors. In the current stretch, testimony has covered serving and suspended police officers, intelligence coordinators and evidence leadership inside the commission itself.

  • The commission moved into closed sessions from early October, with in-camera evidence from intelligence witnesses.
  • There was no sitting on 12 October.
  • Hearings are paused and resume on 9 November.
  • A further appearance is listed for 14 December.
  • The final report is expected in late January 2027. That is the date we are tracking in our coverage, and it is a date the commission can move.

Commissions lose their teeth through delay, not through argument. The single most useful thing to watch is whether the clock holds.

How to follow it

  • Madlanga Today carries the hearing highlights, the names on the stand and the commission timeline, with daily updates.
  • The daily brief carries the commission’s news each morning, with every claim checked against more than one source.
  • Our sources page explains how we check a claim before we publish it.

Why it matters beyond the courtroom

A commission of inquiry is where evidence that never reaches a courtroom is put on the record: intercepted conversations, internal intelligence reports, statements from officers who say they were removed for refusing to cooperate, and testimony about which investigations were stopped and by whom. The findings feed prosecutions, disciplinary hearings and, eventually, law reform. When the commission reports, the question worth asking is not only who was named, but which of the referrals was acted on.

Where these answers come from

  • The commission’s own published terms of reference and mandate on its official site.
  • The Presidency’s published statements on the interim reports and the recommendations and referrals it received.
  • Our own hearing-by-hearing coverage, which is checked against more than one source before publication.

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