Western Cape judge president John Hlophe’s latest “litigation mission” in a saga dragging over almost 15 years has failed
Hlophe, the first judge in SA at risk of being impeached over a finding of gross misconduct against him, is likely to challenge the decision. The high court’s judgment of almost 75 pages amounts to an effective tongue lashing against an errant judge.
“Matters of gross misconduct on the part of a judge and subsequent questions of impeachment lie at the heart of the integrity of our judicial system,” it read.
The high court in Pretoria found Hlophe “should have been sensitive to the rigid north star for judges performing their duties and without fear, favour and prejudice”.
On Thursday, his challenge to a gross misconduct finding from the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) was dismissed. In August, the JSC found against Hlophe in a decision that put his job on the line.
The JSC referred its finding to the National Assembly for an impeachment vote, but the process ground to a temporary halt due to the litigation.
President Cyril Ramaphosa did not suspend Hlophe pending the outcomes, despite a grave finding against the most senior judge in the Western Cape.
This week a full bench of the North Gauteng High Court found many of Hlophe’s arguments against the gross misconduct finding absurd, groundless and lacking justification.
Three judges ruled he showed “no grounds” warranting a review, and refused his bid to have parliament rerun an inquiry into his actions.
Judges Roland Sutherland, Aubrey Ledwaba and Margie Victor said the Western Cape’s judicial leader showed “poor judgment” rehashing an argument conclusively dealt with in a prior case.
Hlophe repeated a claim that the full bench of the Constitutional Court, which laid a complaint against him in 2008, sought to defame and slander him.
Last year — about 13 years since the events at issue — the JSC decided talks he initiated with the two most junior judges on the Constitutional Court bench at the time were flagrantly improper.
The JSC determined Hlophe sought to influence Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta (then acting) when he raised a politically sensitive case over which they were presiding.
With their fellow justices the two had yet to make a ruling in a case involving the man who was soon to become SA’s next president, then second-in-charge of the ANC, Jacob Zuma.
A tribunal of the JSC found that Hlophe aimed to interfere with the courts by pressuring two judges to rule in Zuma’s favour.
The high court said Hlophe’s claim the full bench lodged the complaint against him in bad faith was “proof of poor character”.
“[I]t is not open to a judge in a private conversation to blurt out his preferences, biases or opinions to a fellow judge who, to his knowledge, is preparing a judgment on those very issues about which he has a firm view,” read the judgment.
The bench said Hlophe’s aim was to avoid “far-reaching and devastating consequences to him personally, should he be impeached”.
His last-ditch plea was for the National Assembly to initiate a new inquiry into the events at issue. “The National Assembly does not revisit the JSC’s findings of gross misconduct; that is a given,” the judges decided.
They emphasised judicial independence as “intrinsic to the judicial function and self-evident to judges of integrity”.
The court ruled that Hlophe had not acted in bad faith in bringing the latest case, and ruled that all parties pay their own legal costs.
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