The Judicial Service Commission will decide on Wednesday whether to appoint a tribunal to investigate allegations of misconduct against the Western Cape Judge President.
|||Cape Town - The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) was expected to decide on Wednesday whether to appoint a tribunal to investigate allegations of misconduct against Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe.
“We are going to deal with it tomorrow,” JSC spokesman Dumisa Ntsebeza said on Tuesday.
The announcement followed a recommendation by the Judicial Conduct Committee last month to appoint a tribunal, taking into account the pronouncements of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that the JSC had to decide whether Hlophe was guilty of gross misconduct or not.
At the time the committee said the complaint by Constitutional Court judges, if established, would prima facie indicate gross misconduct, “which may lead to impeachment”.
The matter began in 2008, when the Constitutional Court complained that Hlophe had tried to influence two of its judges to rule in favour of President Jacob Zuma in a case involving the country's multi-billion-rand arms deal. They regarded this as an improper attempt to influence the case.
Hlophe, affronted that the judges had also sent a copy of the complaint to the media before he had had time to deal with it, laid a counter-complaint. A lengthy stop-start parallel process of JSC hearings and court challenges ensued.
The matter was ultimately heard in the SCA with rulings in favour of Western Cape premier Helen Zille and lobby group Freedom Under Law. The SCA ruled that the JSC had to reconsider both complaints. - Sapa