Thank you, President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The president gets criticised every week by me and many other frustrated, impatient, newspaper columnists and ordinary South Africans. We vent on him for the interminable power cuts, for the unreliable water provision, the collapsing infrastructure, the rampant murder and other crimes, for the runaway corruption, and for the sense that both he and his senior comrades are not in a hurry to fix anything, simply because they are responsible for all the rot that bedevils this country.
Yet were it not for the sheer force of Ramaphosa’s presence in office and his insistence on due process and on giving the ANC some moral backbone, the disgraced judge John Hlophe would still be lording it over us and possibly be luxuriating in the office of chief justice. We would be a failed state: a judge who bats for a corrupt Jacob Zuma would be in charge of the judiciary.
Thursday February 22 2024 will go down as a historic day. Parliament voted by an overwhelming 305 yes votes to a mere 27 nays for the process of Hlophe’s removal from office to begin.
Hlophe’s actions presented an existential threat to our country. Had he succeeded, our judiciary would have become a mere tool in the protection of JG Zuma.
Let me tell you this: if it was not for Ramaphosa’s talk of renewal and rejuvenation — implemented in a patchy and lacklustre fashion — then Hlophe would be in office today.
If it was not for Ramaphosa’s sheer insistence that there be some attempt that his party, the ANC, should try to right itself, many ANC MPs would have dragged their feet and ensured that the motion to impeach Hlophe went nowhere.
This is a significant, remarkable victory to rid South Africa of the corruption that descended upon us with the advent of the Zuma presidency of the ANC in 2007.
To appreciate the enormity of what happened with this impeachment you must go back to 2008, when Zuma was facing trial for corruption that related to him taking bribes from Schabir Shaik (by then already convicted and jailed for bribing Zuma) to protect a French arms dealer. Zuma was at the beginning of his Stalingrad legal strategy: challenging the legality of the Scorpions’ search warrants that were used to seize 93,000 pages of evidence that were to be used in his corruption trial. Constitutional Court judges had been debating the matter and it was soon to reach a final decision.
According to court papers, at the end of March 2008, Hlophe visited chambers at the Constitutional Court where he visited judge Chris Jafta. Hlophe told Jafta that Zuma was being persecuted just as he (Hlophe) had been persecuted. He uttered the now famous line to Jafta: “Sesithembele kinina” (isiZulu for “we are placing our trust in you” or “you are our last hope”).
Hlophe was not done with his visits. “Again on April 25 2008 the applicant visited the judges’ chambers at the Constitutional Court during which, among others, he visited the chambers of [judge Bess] Nkabinde,” according to court papers.
In that meeting, Hlophe told Nkabinde that the Zuma matter had “to be correctly decided”, there was no case against Zuma, and that he had a list of people implicated in the arms deal obtained from national intelligence.
Soon after this meeting Jafta and Nkabinde had lunch and, on recounting to each other what had transpired at the Hlophe meetings, they and the entire ConCourt lodged a formal complaint against Hlophe for trying to influence them to rule in favour of Zuma.
It is worth recording one of the final paragraphs of their complaint: “Any attempt to influence this or any other court outside proper court proceedings ... not only violates the specific provisions of the constitution regarding the role and function of courts but also threatens the administration of justice in our country and indeed the democratic nature of the state. Public confidence in the integrity of the courts is of crucial importance for our constitutional democracy and may not be jeopardised.”
Hlophe’s actions presented an existential threat to our country. Had he succeeded, our judiciary would have become a mere tool in the protection of JG Zuma. Hlophe’s actions were treasonous. They were an assault on our democratic state.
We know from the Zondo commission and lately from ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula that the party protected Zuma in many, many, instances. Hlophe’s actions were just part of that trend. I have no doubt that many in the ANC would have approved of Hlophe’s actions.
It is therefore remarkable, indeed extraordinary, that in this case, 16 years after the incident (crime?) happened, ANC MPs found it in their moral code to do the right thing and get rid of this man. It is thanks to Ramaphosa’s ANC renewal and regeneration attempts that it has happened.
Just as ANC MPs found the moral centre to kick out Busisiwe Mkhwebane months ago, this is yet another victory for Ramaphosa — and for us.
May there be many more. Please.
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