The Constitutional Court – led by Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya – has unanimously denied suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s bid to get direct access to its Bench, so that she could argue for untrammelled state funding of her impeachment legal costs.

"The Constitutional Court has considered the application for direct access brought by way of urgency and has concluded that no case has been made out for exclusive jurisdiction and direct access," the apex court stated in a two-page order.

"The court has decided to dismiss the application without directions for filing answering papers. The court has decided not to award costs."

Mkhwebane will now have the option to pursue her case for unlimited State funding of her impeachment trial costs in the High Court. She had argued that this application was one of the reasons that the investigation into her fitness to hold office should be postponed.

She has previously argued that the R4-million cap placed on her continued legal representation by the Public Protector was "a non-starter" and "represents the surest way to guarantee that the present impasse [over funding] will replay and repeat itself come the projected and totally improbable June 2023 end-date of the enquiry or the depletion of the capped funds".

Based on estimates from Mkhwebane’s own lawyers, Public Protector South Africa (PPSA) had initially budgeted R4.55-million for her impeachment defence costs. This subsequently ballooned to R30-million – an amount that resulted in the watchdog body being unable to pay some of the costs orders issued against it as a result of Mkhwebane’s disastrous reports.

Mkhwebane wanted the apex court, which previously found that she was entitled to be legally represented during the Section 194 inquiry into her fitness to hold office, to order that Parliament, the inquiry chairperson Qubudile Dyantyi and President Cyril Ramaphosa and "alternatively the state bears the legal obligation to provide resources" for that legal representation.