This week’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruling in the case of Cape Judge-President John Hlophe has helped restore a little sanity to a justice system that had of late taken on the appearance of something out of Alice in Wonderland .

The carefully argued judgment also illustrates why it would make no sense for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to drop charges against African National Congress president Jacob Zuma now, even if it is convinced that his prosecution has thus far been politically motivated.

As long as the NPA still believes Zuma has a case to answer based on the merits of the evidence collected over the past several years, any decision on whether it has been fatally prejudiced by illegal outside influence should be left to the courts, as in the Hlophe case.

It is vital that justice be seen to be done, and decisions made behind closed doors following secret submissions that cannot be properly tested simply do not clear this essential hurdle.

Nine appeal court judges, in a unanimously decision, overturned an earlier ruling of the Johannesburg High Court that Hlophe’s constitutional rights were violated when the Constitutional Court judges released a statement telling the media they had laid a complaint against Hlophe with the Judicial Services Commission for allegedly attempting to influence two of them to favour Zuma in a case they were presiding over.

You didn’t have to be a law professor to sense that the lower court’s judgment was flawed, or that Hlophe was trying to save his own skin with scant regard for the effect on an essential pillar of our democracy, but the appeal court judgment provides welcome confirmation that the law is supposed to make sense to ordinary mortals too.

It also raises disturbing questions regarding the calibre of the high court ruling, pointing out “inconsistencies and conflicting findings” that have no place in a higher court judgment. Best, it allows the Judicial Services Council to proceed with its hearing into the dispute, and the sooner that is out of the way the better for all of us.

With acknowledgements to Business Day.