An affidavit that Western Cape High Court Judge Mushtak Parker deposed on 25 February 2019 that he was assaulted by Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe has been submitted to the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) inquiry which heard the matter on Friday, notes Marianne Thamm in a Daily Maverick report.

Parker’s affidavit was handed to the JCC which conducted an inquiry into complaints lodged by Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath against her boss, Hlophe, as well as a subsequent complaint by Hlophe against Goliath.

A decision on the matter, which has cleaved the Western Cape Division, will be given in about two weeks.

This is the first occasion that Parker’s affidavit, which he had given to the fellow judge, Eduard Derek Wille, for ‘safekeeping’, has been submitted as part of the record, notes the DM.

It was only after Goliath’s complaint about Hlophe to the JSC in January that Parker attempted to retrieve the affidavit from Wille’s safekeeping, a year after the alleged incident.

Parker has since denied that he was assaulted by Hlophe, claiming he had ‘misunderstood’ what had happened between him and the Judge President. Hlophe, too, has denied the assault as well as other charges of ‘gross misconduct’ as set out by Goliath in her complaint to the JSC.

However, in the affidavit which Parker had requested Wille to draw up as he was not ‘computer literate’ and had not wanted his registrar ‘to bear any knowledge of the incident’, he sets out events that took place in his chambers on 25 February 2019.

Parker states that he was alone when Hlophe had entered around noon and had accused him of being racist and of wanting ‘to screw his wife’ (Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe).

‘I advised the Judge President that these allegations were false. The Judge President lost his temper and struck me with his fist on my chest, after repeatedly threatening to “fuck me up”,’ Parker set out.

Parker said he had fallen to the ground ‘and in so doing broke the key that was in the cupboard housing some of my legal books’.

In a letter to Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, as chair of the JSC, Wille’s legal representative, Stephen Thomson of Thomson Wilks Inc, set out that Wille and the JP ‘are very good friends and Judge Wille values the friendship’.

Thomson said Wille did not want to become ‘further embroiled’ in the dispute but attached Parker’s affidavit with annexures as directed by the CJ.

The JCC also received letters and affidavits by at least 10 judges in the division who have expressed their reluctance to sit with Parker as he had given contradictory versions of the assault, notes the Daily Maverick report.

Wille’s lawyer said it was not disputed that Parker had requested Wille to ‘hold the completed and commissioned affidavit in "safe-keeping" for the benefit of Judge Parker’. The affidavit was returned to Parker by Wille on 17 February after media reports had identified Parker as the judge Hlophe had allegedly assaulted.

The claim is one of many made by Goliath in her complaint about Hlophe to the JSC.

The CJ, as chair of the JCC, had also requested from Judge Kate Savage any ‘relevant information’ with regard to the alleged physical attack by Hlophe on Parker. How Savage came to learn of the attack and Salie-Hlophe’s complaint of sexual harassment against Parker, is set out in her affidavit to the inquiry.

Full Daily Maverick report