GROUNDUP: New research challenges official narrative on commercial crime prosecution decline

The research says delays, withdrawals and poor case management are to blame for the poor performance by specialised commercial crime courts.

Case withdrawals, repeated postponements and poor case management are among the factors causing a decline in successful commercial crime prosecutions in South Africa’s Specialised Commercial Crime Courts.

This is according to a new report by the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit at the University of Cape Town, which challenges the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) explanation for declining commercial crime prosecutions.

Researchers examined 356 cases closed between 2022 and 2024 in nine of the 22 Specialised Commercial Crime Courts, using court files from KwaZulu-Natal, Palm Ridge in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Bellville in the Western Cape.

The NPA’s Specialised Commercial Crime Unit has grown from 20 prosecutors operating in two courts in 1999 to about 300 prosecutors in 22 courts today. Yet the number of cases enrolled and convictions secured has fallen sharply.

In its latest annual report, the NPA partly attributed the decline to a decision to migrate some matters to regional courts, and to the increasing complexity of cases remaining in the specialised courts.

Speaking at the report launch on Wednesday, 3 June 2026, data analyst Michael O’Donovan said these explanations were “questionable”.

“Migrating cases to regional courts should not result in lower verdicts in Specialised Commercial Crime Courts. As cases are moved to regional courts, the capacity of the special courts to absorb other cases remains unhindered,” he said.

He argued that delays alone could not explain the decline. He said the report sought to test whether the courts were in fact dealing with increasingly complex cases.

The report found that the average value of offences was just below R500,000.

“Although the amount is not trivial, it’s not in line with expectations spurred by the magnitude of losses in State Capture,” said O’Donovan.

On average, cases involved less than two accused persons and about two witnesses, and 44% of cases were finalised without any witnesses being called. These figures did not suggest that Specialised Commercial Crime Court cases were typified by complexity.

Fraud, theft and other common-law offences dominated the courts’ workload. Only 19% of charges involved legislation typically associated with organised crime and corruption, such as the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. Most cases related to fraud and other common-law offences – corruptio