Impeachment vote to go ahead after court torpedoes interdict bid by judge John Hlophe

Suspended Western Cape judge president John Hlophe has failed in an 11th-hour bid in court to halt a parliamentary vote on his impeachment.

Hlophe's application to interdict the impeachment vote was heard on Tuesday in the Western Cape High Court.

Gauteng judge Sulet Potterill, who heard the application, struck the urgent application for an interdict off the roll in a ruling on Wednesday.

Hlophe had asked the court to interdict the vote pending the outcome of an application to the Constitutional Court in which he seeks to set aside the justice portfolio committee’s decision to recommend impeachment and to direct parliament to adopt impeachment rules for judges. 

Hlophe faces impeachment for a 2008 complaint from all the then-justices of the ConCourt that he tried to influence the outcome of pending cases before their court connected to corruption charges against former president Jacob Zuma, reported TimesLIVE Premium.

In 2021 the Judicial Service Commission found him guilty of gross misconduct, saying he had attempted to improperly influence two of the apex court’s members to decide pending matters “in favour of particular litigants”.   

TimesLIVE