The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has cleared Western Cape deputy judge president, Patricia Goliath, of gross misconduct in relation to a complaint by her suspended leader, judge president John Hlophe. She will not have to face a judicial conduct tribunal, which would have investigated the complaint with a view to possible impeachment.
Hlophe, on the other hand, faces another tribunal over her complaint against him. The embattled judge president has already been suspended, and faces impeachment, over an earlier unrelated complaint made in 2008 by the then justices of the Constitutional Court.
TimesLIVE Premium has confirmed these decisions by the JSC with two independent sources. They were made on September 29 at a meeting of the “small JSC” — the JSC when it sits without its MP commissioners.
The decisions come despite the JCC’s appeal committee decision that there was a prima facie case of gross misconduct on both Hlophe’s and Goliath’s parts; and a recommendation that they both face a tribunal. However, JCC decisions may be accepted or rejected by the small JSC and a tribunal may only be established if the small JSC says so.
If the allegations of racism against the DJP [ Goliath] were established, including the allegation that the DJP referred to some judges as ‘k*****tjies’ or that the JP [Hlophe] and Salie-Hlophe lied in imputing the allegations to the DJP, gross misconduct could be proved either way.
— JSC appeals committee
The complaint by Hlophe against Goliath came as a counter-complaint in the wake of her own shocking allegations against the judge president. In 2020, she laid a complaint with the JSC, listing a number of transgressions, including that Hlophe had assaulted a colleague — judge Mushtak Parker, it later emerged — in his chambers.
She also alleged that he had undermined her in her role as his deputy, that he had involved his then-wife Gayaat Salie-Hlophe in the administration of the division, making other judges uneasy and that, when she tried to address her concerns with him, he reacted aggressively, calling her a “piece of shit” and “rubbish”, Goliath said.
Hlophe denied swearing at Goliath and said their relationship of trust had broken down because she had meddled in his domestic affairs.
He accused her of incompetence, lying and racism, saying she had called him an ugly old man, that she had referred to Africans as “k*****tjies” and that she had told Salie-Hlophe to drop his black surname.
When Hlophe denied swearing at her, Goliath produced a recording of the conversation. Hlophe then said her secret recording of their conversations was undermining him.
The appeals committee of the JSC found that both complaints — if they were established to be true — would amount to gross misconduct, saying, among other findings, that: “If the allegations of racism against the DJP [ Goliath] were established, including the allegation that the DJP referred to some judges as ‘k*****tjies’ or that the JP [Hlophe] and Salie-Hlophe lied in imputing the allegations to the DJP, gross misconduct could be proved either way.”
The JSC has not yet decided whether to recommend to the president that Hlophe be suspended — in relation to this complaint. It will decide this at its next meeting. The JSC gave Goliath, as the complainant, an opportunity to make written representations by November 8 on whether Hlophe should be suspended .
A suspension of Hlophe now would be of no practical effect as he is already suspended. But if the judge president were to succeed in his litigation to set aside his current suspension, a further suspension on the basis of Goliath’s complaint would keep him out of office on an additional basis.
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