Varsity 'sex pest' gets court ban after 10th failed reinstatement bid

24 December 2019 - 12:40 By Dave Chambers
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A journalism lecturer, fired for alleged sexual harassment, has been barred from the labour court in Cape Town after 10 failed attempts to get his job back.
A journalism lecturer, fired for alleged sexual harassment, has been barred from the labour court in Cape Town after 10 failed attempts to get his job back.
Image: 123rf/Dmytro Zinkevych

A journalism lecturer who was fired for allegedly sexually harassing two students has been banned from instituting any more legal action in his attempts to be reinstated.

Clement du Plessis.
Clement du Plessis.
Image: Facebook/Clement du Plessis

Clement du Plessis, who worked at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, will only be able to take up legal cudgels again when he has paid all the costs orders against him in the Cape Town labour court.

These include costs in his latest defeat, described by acting judge Sean Snyman as a case “that should never have burdened this court”.

Du Plessis represented himself, but he was ordered to pay the costs of the public protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, and the vice-chancellor of CPUT, Chris Nhlapo, who instructed lawyers to represent them.

The punitive costs order against him came at the conclusion of his 10th failed attempt to get his job back and was the fourth costs order against him.

Snyman said the defeats Du Plessis suffered “simply spurred him on, rather than bringing him to different insights”.

In his judgment this month, he said: “It is unfortunately now the time to properly warn [Du Plessis], and to convey censure for the manner in which he has chosen to conduct himself and his clear abuse of the processes of this court.

“On each occasion he does so, he takes up the valuable time and already-stretched resources of this court without any basis for doing so.

“The court has consistently said that this kind of frivolous and unfounded litigation is deserving of punitive costs orders.”

Du Plessis was fired in 2014 for incidents of "harassment" in 2012 and 2013. The lecturer allegedly told a first-year student he would “take time in finding her [tattoos]” and sensed a “chemistry between them”. It was also alleged that he had suggested a threesome with students.

Another student said Du Plessis had suggested “putting herself and another student over his lap and spanking them”. It was also claimed that he tried to intimidate one of the victims when he went to her family home.

Du Plessis’s five-year campaign to save his career included:

  • A disciplinary hearing chaired by Arthi Singh-Bhoopchand, who worked for a company called IR Change;
  • A failed attempt to challenge the outcome at the labour court;
  • An unfair dismissal claim at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA), which was lodged late and rejected because it had no prospects of success;
  • A failed attempt to challenge the CCMA ruling at the labour court;
  • A failed application to the labour court for leave to appeal;
  • A failed labour appeal court application for leave to appeal;
  • A rejected complaint to the public protector alleging that CCMA commissioner Dave Wilson had a conflict of interest because he was Singh-Bhoopchand's colleague at IR Change;
  • A failed internal review application to the public protector;
  • A failed application to the Cape Town high court to review the public protector’s decision not to investigate his complaint; and
  • His latest failed labour court case, in which he again sought a review of the public protector's decision.

Snyman said it added up to “a barrage of litigation” based on Du Plessis’ view that the sexual harassment charges were part of “a conspiracy by CPUT to get rid of him”.

In the latest case, said the judge, the labour court had no jurisdiction. While he disagreed with CPUT’s suggestion that Du Plessis be declared a vexatious litigant, he said he was pursuing a hopeless case.

“His application never had any merit, and a modicum of common sense and circumspection ... should have made it clear to [him] that he had his day in the CCMA and in this court but unfortunately lost,” he said.

“To doggedly press on with the case was entirely unfounded and unreasonable.”


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