SOUTH AFRICA’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM FACES CONSTITUTIONAL REDESIGN PRESSURE AS TRUST COLLAPSES
A trust score of four out of 100. That is what Action Society’s Criminal Justice Trust Indicator recorded in its February 2026 baseline survey of 2,057 respondents, 96.4% of whom said they believe there is no justice for crime in South Africa. The figure has sharpened calls for fundamental structural reform of the country’s prosecution architecture.
The survey data maps the scale of institutional failure. Just over 90% of respondents said they had not personally received justice for a criminal offence in the past 20 years. Some 85.4% identified the South African Police Service and the courts as the primary source of delays. And 98% of respondents believe criminals escape accountability for serious crimes. These are not marginal dissatisfactions. They describe a population that has largely abandoned confidence in the criminal justice system.
The governance question at the heart of this crisis concerns the relationship between investigation and prosecution. Debate about devolved policing powers has gained traction in recent years, particularly in provinces like the Western Cape, but the prosecutorial function remains locked within a centralized national structure. Section 179 of the Constitution established the National Prosecuting Authority as a single national institution, a design that may have served uniformity objectives at the time but now operates as a bottleneck preventing local accountability.
The argument for constitutional amendment rests on a criminological principle that has held across jurisdictions for decades: certainty of consequence reduces crime more effectively than harsher sentencing or increased police visibility alone. When potential offenders believe they will be caught, prosecuted and face real consequences, crime rates decline. When the expected cost of crime collapses because nothing happens, deterrence fails entirely. South Africa’s system does not follow through on this mechanism.
A well-prepared police docket requires a prosecutor capable of making enrollment decisions and moving cases forward. If investigative powers are devolved to provinces but prosecution remains trapped in a centralized authority overwhelmed by volume, backlog and poor coordination, the certainty of consequence does not improve. Action Society describes this as a half-built bridge: capable local governments can deploy law enforcement resources, gather intelligence and respond to crime patterns, but their work ends at the courthouse door.
The reform proposal involves amending Section 179 to permit provincial prosecutorial powers linked to devolved investigative powers, operating under strict national standards. Clear objective criteria would govern which provinces could exercise these powers. Prosecutors must act without fear, favour or prejudice. National norms must apply uniformly. The National Director of Public Prosecutions would retain oversight powers in matters of national importance, organized crime spanning provinces, or cases involving clear conflicts of interest.
International experience offers a relevant model. Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption combined investigation, prevention and public education, but crucially understood that investigations must be prosecution-ready. The ICAC does not itself prosecute; it forwards evidence to Hong Kong’s Department of Justice, whose Prosecutions Division advises investigators and exercises prosecutorial discretion. That tight linkage between specialized investigation and capable, independent prosecution is precisely the missing link in South Africa’s system. Further analysis on this governance question appears at https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/2026-07-12-south-africa-needs-decentralised-prosecutions-and-policing/
By contrast, South Africa’s current design severs that linkage at the constitutional level, leaving provincial law enforcement capacity without a corresponding prosecutorial counterpart.
Decentralized prosecution would also bring accountability closer to the people most affected by crime. Today, victims often have no meaningful way to know why their case is delayed, withdrawn or ignored. A provincial prosecution model would create pathways for local accountability that do not currently exist.
The National Prosecuting Authority contains many committed prosecutors who work daily in courts across the country. This reform proposal is not an attack on individual officials. It is an argument about institutional design. When a single national prosecuting authority cannot deliver justice at scale, constitutional design must serve the public rather than become an altar before which victims are sacrificed.
Years ago, devolved policing sounded far-fetched. Today it forms part of serious public debate. The same shift must happen with prosecution. South Africans do not need another promise that the NPA must do better. Victims have heard that for years. They need a system redesigned around certainty. When the criminal justice system scores four out of 100, the question is no longer whether the status quo is sustainable. It is which level of government will be empowered to replace it.