The real reason for the suspension of head prosecutor Vusi Pikoli related to a criminal probe into police chief Jackie Selebi, Pikoli's lawyers said on Wednesday.

"It was to put a spoke in the wheels of the investigation and prosecution of the national commissioner of police Mr Jackie Selebi."

This statement is contained in a submission by Pikoli's lawyers prepared for the public hearing into whether the suspended head of the National Prosecuting Authority is fit to hold office.

His legal team provided Sapa with a copy as the first public hearings of Frene Ginwala's government-commissioned inquiry into Pikoli's fitness to hold office got underway.

"Mr Pikoli says that the circumstances of his suspension, its history and its aftermath, made it absolutely clear that there was only one reason for his suspension and one reason alone," reads the submission.

President Thabo Mbeki suspended Pikoli on 24 September last year and Ginwala, former speaker of the National Assembly, was appointed on 28 September to head the inquiry.

At the time, Mbeki cited a breakdown in the relationship between Pikoli and Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla as the reason for the NPA head's suspension.

Mbeki suspended Selebi in January and went on "extended leave of absence". Selebi was charged with corruption and defeating the ends of justice at the end of January.

Public hearings in the Pikoli inquiry started at the Johannesburg City Council Chambers on Wednesday.

Hearings not a judicial process

Ginwala opened proceedings by explaining that the hearings were not a judicial process and that Mbeki would table a report to parliament on the commission's recommendations.

The government called Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange as its first witness. His statement was given to Pikoli's legal team at 9.30am on Wednesday - half an hour before proceedings were to begin.

"We are taken by surprise by this late intervention," Advocate Wim Trengove, who represents Pikoli, told the inquiry.

However, it had decided to accommodate the government by agreeing to his testimony on condition that the team be given additional time to prepare for cross-examination if necessary.

Another provision was that Pikoli's lawyers be allowed to argue "at the end of the day" whether the inquiry "should have any regards to his evidence at all".

Trengove said it appeared De Lange's statement was "as a matter of law wholly irrelevant and inadmissible".

Questioned about the issue of plea bargaining, De Lange said South African authorities had tried to create a balance where a number of people were involved in the process instead of only one person.

Originally, Pikoli's predecessor, Bulelani Ngcuka, gave only the most senior people the authority to negotiate plea bargains.

"I wouldn't like to see pleas being used to let every criminal go scot-free," said De Lange.

Scot-free thanks to plea bargains

He said plea bargains in which people appeared to have been let off scot-free included those negotiated in the drug case involving Glen Agliotti.

Other examples were the Mark Thatcher case and a farmer who claimed he shot a dog when in fact he had shot a person.

These evoked a particular response in people because of the nature of the cases and because the sentence "goes against the grain of the morality of some people".

Asked by an advisor to the commission, Advocate Ishmael Semenya, about the relationship between the justice minister and the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), De Lange said they needed to have a professional relationship but did not have to be friends.

"If they do have a braai from time to time, that will help their relationship... but I imagine it should be a professional relationship," he told the commission.

Queried on whether it would be adequate if they were able to phone each other, De Lange responded: "I think not."

He said the law required that the NPA may report to the minister. Merely talking about these over the telephone was "not enough".

On whether they could have a distant relationship as long as the reports were submitted as required, De Lange said he personally would want "a very close relationship of trust to exist between me and my NDPP".

"In that case, there is no way a relationship at a distance is a good thing."

Part of the commission's mandate is to establish whether there was a complete breakdown in trust between Pikoli and Mabandla