An Analysis of the Role of the Public Protector in Fostering a Democratic System of Government in South Africa

In South Africa, the Office of the Public Protector (OPP) is one of the institutions constitutionally established to defend the constitution and the rule of law by holding public officials accountable. Methodologically, relying on a literature review research approach where existing pertinent literature in the subject area was retrieved broadly from the Google Scholar search engine, reviewed, and applied in order to examine and analyse the significant role of the OPP in fostering the protection of the democratic system of government, to this end, it showed that the OPP became constitutionally and legislatively provided to meet and deliver these objectives of constitutional democracy and the rule of law. The OPP was to stand up for the rights of the public by fighting rouge elements when they showed up in government. This article looks at various laws utilised to establish the office pre-1994 colonial, apartheid, and post-1994 democratic South Africa. The influential jurisprudence of Sweden was used to explain the origin and how South Africa adopted it even during and after apartheid up to democratic South Africa to support and strengthen democratic values by serving as a check on the executive and legislature to curb abuse of powers by the people who are in positions of authority.