Western Cape high court judge president John Hlophe’s attempt to pull President Cyril Ramaphosa into the increasingly toxic crisis at the court is highly unlikely to succeed.
Hlophe has called for a judicial commission of inquiry into how murder plot claims and misconduct complaints against him have been evaluated. Only the president has the power to establish a commission of inquiry.
The presidency has aligned itself with the stance taken by the justice department on an interim Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services report in which it was reportedly found that allegations of a planned assassination plot against Hlophe’s deputy, Patricia Goliath, could not be discounted and warranted further investigation. The justice department said the report had been referred to the State Security Agency and the SA Police Service “for processing within their mandate”.
“We await their guidance,” justice department spokesperson Chrispin Phiri told Business Day.
Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services judge Edwin Cameron last week confirmed to Newzroom Afrika that his office had launched an investigation after being contacted by Goliath.
Her evidence to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) recently persuaded chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng that Hlophe should face an impeachment investigation for alleged abuse of power, assault of a fellow judge and abusive language. Mogoeng dismissed Hlophe’s gross misconduct complaints of racism and incompetence against Goliath, largely on the basis that there was no real evidence to back them up.
Goliath reportedly received a tip-off after an inmate at a Pietermaritzburg prison claimed he had overheard a phone conversation between an alleged hitman and a fellow cellmate.
‘Telling truth’
“We held an investigation,” Cameron told Newzroom Afrika.
“I sent two straight-as-arrows senior members of my executive down and I trust their integrity and their good sense and their good judgment as well, and they concluded that it seemed that the man that they interviewed was telling the truth about what was said to him and what he overheard. It doesn’t mean that it’s not all hearsay; some of it may be hearsay.”
In a six-page media statement released on Friday, Hlophe’s attorney, Barnabas Xulu, denied there was any truth to the allegations of a murder plot against Goliath. He claims that unnamed “investigators” believed the alleged murder plot informant may have been “used” by the deputy judge president.
Goliath’s attorney, Nick Muller, has declined to comment on Xulu’s claims.
Xulu further strongly suggested that Mogoeng may have been influenced by Goliath’s report of the alleged plot against her when he ruled that Hlophe should face an impeachment investigation — Xulu contends the entire JSC process under way against Hlophe over Goliath’s complaints may be tainted. He says the judicial commission of inquiry now proposed by Hlophe will “assist in getting to the bottom of this corrupt attack on him and ultimately on judicial independence”.
Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution executive secretary Lawson Naidoo has dismissed the mooted inquiry as a “diversionary tactic” that is “designed to bring the whole of the judiciary into disrepute”.
“There are adequate mechanisms to deal with these allegations and the misconduct complaints levelled against judge president Hlophe. The criminal allegations must be dealt with by law enforcement and the misconduct allegations need to be dealt with by the Judicial Service Commission.
“I can see no need to go outside those structures,” he said.
Naidoo said the criminal investigation into the alleged murder plot against Goliath, as well as the two gross misconduct complaints against Hlophe that are being processed by the JSC, “need to be expedited, given the effect of these allegations on the integrity of the judiciary”.
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