This follows the latter's apparent failure to hand over a "declassified" document relating to a probe into Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

In a statement, Mkhwebane said Letsatsi-Duba's failure to hand over the report amounts to interference with the Public Protector's work and is against the law.

“It is my respectful view that the minister’s failure to avail the declassified report as subpoenaed amounts to contempt of the Public Protector and interference with the functioning of my office, and is therefore an offence,” said Mkhwebane.

“The Constitution makes it clear that no person or organ of state may interfere with the functioning of independent constitutional institutions such as my office. The Constitutional Court has clarified this further, explaining that, in doing my work, I am not to be inhibited, undermined or sabotaged and that my powers are ‘not supposed to bow down to anybody’.”

The charge was laid on March 13, just two days after Letsatsi-Duba opened a criminal case against Mkhwebane, who the minister said obtained a copy of the report, which she says is classified top secret, illegally.

Mkhwebane is probing whether Gordhan breached the Executive Members' Ethics Act in relation to the early pension payout to former deputy revenue service commissioner Ivan Pillay.

ANA