Agliotti kiss haunts aspirant judge

One was quizzed about being a Broederbond member; another was asked about a kiss from convicted druglord Glenn Agliotti.

The aspiring judges applying for five vacant positions at the Johannesburg and Pretoria high courts were grilled by a Judicial Service Commission panel in Cape Town yesterday.

On the panel were Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe and Home Affairs Deputy Minister Fatima Chohan.

Advocate and acting judge Kiki Bailey, one of only two women candidates, explained what happened in a chance encounter with Agliotti at the Brett Kebble murder trial at the Johannesburg High Court.

She was with an acting judge and another judge when Agliotti called her by name and greeted her with a kiss. She told the panel she was "shocked".

"I met him in the '80s at church. I was very upset," she said, adding that she explained the situation to her fellow judges in the tea room.

Advocate Johannes Kruger, 64, a member of Lawyers for Human Rights, was grilled about his right-wing past by the JSC panel.

He was asked by South Gauteng Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo about his membership of the Afrikaner Broederbond.

Kruger said that when he was approached to join the organisation it seemed a normal thing to do because he was from a "typical platteland community".

He told the panel that he was involved in talks with the ANC in Lusaka when the party was banned, and drank and ate biltong with ANC members for "nights on end".

Another legal eagle interviewed for a high court position was high-profile lawyer Ike Motloung.

Mojapelo grilled Motloung - Molemo "Jub Jub" Maarohanye's lawyer - about being insensitive to the families of the four schoolboys killed when his client allegedly drove into them during an illegal street race.

Said Mojapelo: "In a criminal case you deal with people . there are always victims. And one can serve justice without making them feel that there is no sympathy."

Hlophe asked another applicant, advocate Gerald Farber, why black advocates could not get a slice of the commercial litigation pie.

"I think it will get better in time . it will evolve naturally," said Farber, a former chairman of the Johannesburg Bar. He said change was evident in that more blacks were taking silk. - Additional reporting by Philani Nombembe