The professional organisation representing advocates is considering the removal of Dali Mpofu as one of the representative of the profession on the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) on the grounds that he has brought the profession and the administration of justice into disrepute.
This followed Mpofu’s conduct towards Gauteng judge president and acting chief justice Raymond Zondo and his inappropriate comments directed at the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal judge Mandisa Maya during interviews of four candidate judges for the position of chief justice that the JSC undertook last week.
The General Council of the Bar of SA (GCB) said it had been inundated with objections to Mpofu’s conduct and strongly disapproved of it. Mpofu was nominated to the JSC in terms of a working arrangement between the GCB and Advocates for Transformation (AFT), which allows AFT to nominate one of the council’s nominees on the JSC.
The council said it was in discussions with the AFT about replacing Mpofu on the JSC.
“Mpofu SC is nevertheless a representative of the advocates’ profession as a whole. His inappropriate questioning of the candidates for appointment to the highest judicial position in the land, that of chief justice is seen to have brought the profession into disrepute,” the council said in a statement on Tuesday night.
“Objection has been raised to Mpofu SC continuing to be the representative of the advocates’ profession on the JSC, entrusted as he is with the task of representing the values and interests of all practising advocates in relation to judicial appointments and other important functions of the JSC. The GCB has been requested by a number of constituent bars and individual members to seek the replacement of Mpofu SC on the JSC and is in discussions with AFT to that end.”
The council said that all candidates who make themselves available for judicial appointment — especially highly respected judges — are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect in their interviews before the JSC.
It said the unfair questioning by Mpofu of the judges, which closely followed that of EFF leader Julius Malema, created the impression that he and Malema were using the JSC as a platform for political ends.
“The spurious ad hominem attacks on Mlambo during the course of which ... [were] highly destructive and clearly unsubstantiated, ‘rumours’ of sexual harassment of applicants for acting appointments, for which, on Mpofu SC’s own version, there was no factual basis, is seen to have been employed simply in order to taint the reputation of the honourable judge president and exclude him from consideration for appointment on this fabricated ground alone.
“The sexist nature of Mpofu SC’s questioning of SCA president Maya, resorting at the commencement of his questioning to totally inappropriate sexual innuendo, which was offensive and, once again, unprofessional and lacking in the decorum which the platform and interviewing process required, has heightened the concern,” the statement said.
Mpofu referred in his questioning of Maya to having spent the night with her, later clarifying that it was an all-night study session.
The GCB added that the pending disciplinary charges against Mpofu regarding his conduct at a hearing of the Zondo commission of inquiry — he told a colleague to “shut up” — should on its own already have disqualified him from representing the advocates’ profession on the JSC.
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