Surveying the battlefield of broken reputations that accompanied the fall of Jacob Zuma, at least two public figures emerge with their integrity intact. And the irony is that neither of them had seemed predestined to have their names inscribed on the very short roll of honour of the Zuma era.
Both Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng and former public protector Thuli Madonsela were appointed by Zuma, their selection marking a break from the list of duds, flunkeys and praise-singers who became the poster children for the excesses of the Zuma era.
The further irony is that Mogoeng's elevation to the Constitutional Court in October 2009 was greeted with derision by legal commentators - and commentators without the slightest insight into the intricacies of constitutional law.
Former Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven was among those who spoke out against Mogoeng, saying: "It would appear that Justice Mogoeng's qualifications and experience meet the minimum requirements for appointment." Cosatu said that because Mogoeng had been a prosecutor in the Bophuthatswana homeland, there were "serious concerns regarding his role under apartheid".For Zuma, though, there was worse to come from Mogoeng, in the form of the Constitutional Court's judgment on Nkandla in March 2016. Madonsela's report, Secure in Comfort, on the unauthorised security upgrades to Zuma's residence, had been rejected by Zuma, who sought to minimise it to "recommendations".
But Mogoeng left no doubt where the court stood on Madonsela's powers, stating: "Her investigative powers are not supposed to bow down to anybody, not even at the door of the highest chambers of raw state power."
He continued: "The president thus failed to uphold, defend and respect the constitution as the supreme law of the land. This failure is manifest from the substantial disregard for the remedial action taken against him by the public protector in terms of her constitutional powers." And: "The president's alleged disregard for the remedial action taken against him does seem to amount to a breach of a constitutional obligation."
If Zuma's choice of a chief justice proved to be a decision he would come to regret, this was no less true in the case of Madonsela.
What is instructive, though, and telling of the lows of public discourse to which South Africa sank in this sorry era, was the personal insults that Madonsela had to endure, which Mogoeng, by virtue of his gender alone, was spared. For example, the ANC-aligned Congress of South African Students was forced into an embarrassing retreat in March 2014, after its shameful comment about what it called Madonsela's "big, ugly nose"...