Advocate Malesela Teffo, the lawyer who was on Thursday dramatically handcuffed and arrested in the high court in Pretoria following the adjournment of the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, is no stranger to drama and controversy.
Teffo was picked up by police officers who brandished a warrant for his arrest, claiming he was being taken in for failure to appear in another court for a case where he is facing assault and trespassing charges. Teffo went with the officers while he proclaimed his innocence, saying his arrest was as a result of police minister Bheki Cele not wanting him to be involved in the Meyiwa trial.
Over the past few months, Teffo has allegedly been misbehaving, disrespectful and causing drama in the Johannesburg high court in another case in which he in involved. Things were allegedly so bad in that matter that fed up judge Winston Msimeki penned a judgment on March 22 2022 officially throwing Teffo off the case.
Msimeki’s 23-page judgment, which TimesLIVE has seen, made shocking revelations about how Teffo has disrespected him in court, even going as far as telling Msimeki he is “not a sober judge” and he is “73 years old and ought to have retired at 70 instead of remaining in court carrying a political mandate without a case”.
Listing a range of other allegations — including when Teffo missed court dates because he was in jail, threatening the prosecutor in court and addressing Msimeki by his surname instead of “your lordship” — Msimeki said: “I, in my entire career, as a judge or attorney while I practised, never experienced nor saw what Mr Teffo was doing in court”.
In the case before him, Teffo was representing two men, Siboniso Miya and Nkanyiso Mafunda, who are charged alongside convicted organised crime boss and Czech citizen Radovan Krejcir.
Krejcir, Teffo’s two clients and another man face charges linked to the October 2013 assassination of alleged drug dealer Sam Issa. That case has been in court for six years, with numerous delays and several applications put in by different counsels at different stages of the trial.
Msimeki said Teffo showed disrespect from the second he came into his chambers in November 2021 to announce he was representing the two accused after taking over from a Legal Aid SA lawyer.
In that first meeting, Teffo allegedly spoke rudely to Msimeki, ignored reprimands by the state prosecutor to show respect and instead allegedly escalated his disrespect.
Mr Teffo was not courteous when he spoke to me and this resulted in [the prosecutor] informing Mr Teffo he was not showing any respect. Mr Teffo did not take this kindly.
— Judge Winston Msimeki
“Mr Teffo was not courteous when he spoke to me and this resulted in [the prosecutor] informing Mr Teffo he was not showing any respect. Mr Teffo did not take this kindly. Mr Teffo had not been respectful but this was ignored,” Msimeki said.
During that meeting Teffo made demands, including that the media be allowed into court to document proceedings and that his clients be moved from where they were kept to the Johannesburg prison.
Msimeki said it was explained to Teffo that the media was not barred from proceedings but they had stopped attending court because of the many postponements.
Teffo allegedly missed the next court appearance on November 18, and when he arrived on November 26 he told the court he had missed proceedings because he was in jail. He said he had been kept at Sun City prison. His explanation was that he had appeared in the Hillbrow magistrate’s court, but his matter could not be speedily heard because two of the magistrates he was brought before were unable to hear his case because he had previously laid complaints against both.
He eventually got R500 bail when he appeared before a third magistrate.
Msimeki said he accepted his excuse for missing proceedings but instead of progressing, Teffo complained about the pre-arranged dates set down for the trial.
When the case returned to court in January, Teffo allegedly again made trouble when he refused to report to Msimeki in chambers when he was called together with the prosecutor and other lawyers involved in the case.
When reprimanded in court, Teffo came to loggerheads with the prosecutor, telling him where he had studied, that he had paid his own fees and that he had “no right to talk to him like that and he would regret it”, said Msimeki.
“[Teffo] said the gloves were off between him and the state and that the relationship between them had broken down irretrievably.”
He said the same about his clients’ trust in Msimeki said “no sangoma or doctor” would be able to repair the distrust the accused had in him.
Teffo had reportedly told Msimeki he had not responded to the call for him to come to chambers because “this was becoming a norm” and compared what was happening in court to the book Animal Farm.
Teffo again made the request for his clients to be moved to Johannesburg prison, saying they were “no longer teenagers” and were strained by the trip from Zonderwater and Modderbee prisons. He claimed his clients were being driven roughly and that Johannesburg prison was safer.
He is disrespectful, unprofessional and contemptuous
— Judge Winston Msimeki
“He based this on the fact that he was in a single cell in Johannesburg prison for nine days. This was followed by laughter from the court gallery,” Msimeki said.
Referring to Msimeki by his name instead of as “your lordship”, Teffo instructed him to resolve the disputes between himself and the state and called on the court to permit the media in to proceedings, adding that he had made contact with eNCA to do so.
He accused the state of barring the media because it had something to hide, but the state allegedly repeated to him that the media had to put in the necessary application.
When the case resumed on February 4 this year, Teffo reportedly asked to adjourn so he could fetch his child from school. The court obliged but when the matter was under way, and another matter of dispute came up, Teffo reportedly said to Msimeki: “Just listen to me, I am talking.”
Msimeki said he indicated to Teffo he could not speak to him like that and told him his conduct was disrespectful.
It did not end there.
Teffo said in future he would address Msimeki as “your lordship” if “justice” was not good enough. Teffo also Msimeki told “he respected the court but did not worship it”.
The case was postponed as Msimeki said he could see no progress would be made while Teffo was behaving as he did.
When the court convened on March 2, the court ordered Teffo to show cause on March 11 why he should not be excluded from the proceedings or be held in contempt.
Teffo told the court he was not sure the order related to him as it was not procedural.
He said he was being “discriminated against and bullied by the court”, that it was not the business of the court to terminate the mandate of a lawyer and his clients and Msimeki could not be a judge and a complainant.
It has become imperative that Mr Teffo, for the sake of progress, be removed from the case
— Judge Winston Msimeki
Msimeki further alleged Teffo said the judge should report him to whoever he wished but nothing would happen to him.
“What Mr Teffo further said merely confirmed he is disrespectful, unprofessional and contemptuous,” Msimeki said.
In the judgment, titled “On the conduct of Adv Malesela Daniel Teffo”, Msimeki said the court was patient enough to allow Teffo the latitude to showcase his conduct that clearly showed he was disrespectful, unethical, unprofessional and contemptuous.
“It has become imperative that Mr Teffo, for the sake of progress, be removed from the case,” Msimeki said.
He said he decided not to pursue the contempt route because there were enough grounds to exclude Teffo from the case and the trial needs to proceed as soon as possible.
On the day Msimeki handed down this judgment Teffo was not in court.
TimesLIVE
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