A question which lingers on my mind is: how was the impeached former Western Cape high court judge president, Dr Mandlakayise John Hlophe, appointed as a judge?
He was the first black person to be appointed to the bench in 1995 and elevated to judge president position in 2000 with hardly any practical experience as a former practising counsel. He came from an academic background.
To be catapulted to these positions with no experience on its own showed that there was something amiss about his appointment. His professional, moral and ethical behaviour on the bench often brought the judiciary, especially in the Western Cape, into disrepute.
By all accounts Hlophe’s resume is admirable. However, his stewardship as the judge president of the Western Cape division of the high court since his appointment left much to be desired. It created tensions between himself and some judges and among judges against one another. Hlophe as judge president in the past had an abuse complaint lodged against him by his then deputy judge president, Patricia Goliath, at the Judicial Conduct Committee. It was a complaint of un-collegial language and assault.
He lived up to his African name, Mandlakayise. Assaulting a colleague according to him mattered not, hence he didn’t deem it inappropriate in 2008 to try to influence some constitutional court justices who before them, were seized with the alleged malfeasance of former president Gedleyihlekisa Jacob Zuma.
During that period Hlophe approached some ConCourt justices and told them that “sesithembele kunina [you are our last hope]”. Hlophe almost influenced the ConCourt justices to turn a blind eye on all the legal wrongs Zuma committed and decide in Zuma’s favour.
What sort of judge president behaves in this manner? Hlophe could not care less about the adverse consequences of attempting to influence justices at the ConCourt. His name said it all; una mandlakayise — none could tell him otherwise.
At the time of his appointment to the highest office as the judge president of the Western Cape division, because he is Mandlakayise, he disregarded the inherent conflict of interest in his appointment as a non-executive director of Oasis Crescent Retirement Fund. He went on to receive massive remuneration as such while serving as the judge president.
Disrespecting his seniors, late former chief justice Pius Langa and former chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, was not an issue to him. He knew he had the cover of his “comrade brother”, one Gedleyihlekisa. African names sometimes have a way of defining who we become.
In all fairness Zuma and Hlophe are in the same WhatsApp group. The shenanigans around Hlophe, as in the case of Zuma, are bottomless. In 2007 he unashamedly requested the government to buy him a Porsche to accord with his status as a judge president. Really?
The JSC, at the time of his appointment as the first black person to be appointed a judge, thought he was adequately fit and proper to be appointed as a judge only to move for his impeachment in February2004. What a costly mistake. Thankfully upon his impeachment, he forfeited his retirement package.
Hlophe’s infractions in terms of professionalism, morality and ethics are as distasteful as his many colourful academic qualifications. The irony or twist in his chequered professional career is that a month or so post his impeachment, our former chief justice saw it fit to swear in Hlophe as an “honourable MP”. What a contradiction in terms.
Once impeached as a dishonourable judge president, how then does he become an “honourable member” of a parliament which voted to impeach him? Who in any portfolio committee in parliament will want to work with a “dishonourable impeached judge president”? Who is Hlophe going to hold accountable?
Let us respect our democracy and elect people of impeccable integrity to represent us in positions of public responsibility. Hlophe wasn’t even elected as is everyone else in the MKP. The supreme leader of the MKP, Zuma, undemocratically appointed all of them to serve us as honourable members in parliament.
For the sake of our moral and ethical integrity in the family of countries across the globe, let all those who are tainted in one way or form shift from the stage of the public platform.
Adv Mahlodi Samuel Muofhe is the former director of State Security Agency.
