A substantial majority of the JSC has voted to uphold a gross misconduct finding against Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe, paving the way for an impeachment process by Parliament.

This will be the first time in SA’s post-1994 history the JSC has referred a judge to Parliament for possible impeachment.

It is understood eight members of the JSC voted to find Hlophe guilty while four voted against, according to a TimesLIVE report by legal writer Franny Rabkin.

The finding of gross misconduct this year by a judicial conduct tribunal related to a 2008 complaint by all the then justices of the Constitutional Court, who complained that the Western Cape Judge President had sought to influence the outcome of a pending judgment relating to corruption charges against former President Jacob Zuma.

At the time, Zuma was president of the ANC and the Constitutional Court judgment was widely viewed as crucial to his prospects of becoming President of SA.

The JSC said it would be furnishing Parliament with copies of its majority and minority views.

It has also asked those who participated at the tribunal for written submissions on whether it should recommend to President Cyril Ramaphosa that Hlophe be suspended, pending an impeachment decision by Parliament.

After years of litigation, the 13-year complaint was finally heard by the tribunal in 2020.

It found that Hlophe had improperly sought to influence two of the highest court’s justices – Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta – to violate their oaths of office, notes TimesLIVE. 

Its report reads that during two separate visits to the Constitutional Court, Hlophe had, uninvited, raised the Zuma cases and said that the SCA judgment was wrong; there was no case against Zuma; and Zuma was being persecuted just as he, Hlophe, had been persecuted.

To Nkabinde, he ‘bragged’ about his political connections and said that people were going to lose their jobs once Zuma became President, according to the tribunal.

To Jafta, after saying the SCA had got it wrong, he said the now infamous words sesithembele kinina.

According to a witness at the tribunal, the words could mean variously ‘we put our confidence in you’, ‘we have faith in you’, ‘we put our trust in you’, ‘we trust in you’, ‘we rely upon (or on) you’, or ‘we are pinning our hope on you’.

The tribunal’s three-person panel chaired by retired Judge Joop Labuschagne said the ‘irresistible’ inference was that there was an attempt to influence.

The panel also emphatically rejected Hlophe’s argument that there was nothing wrong with judges talking to each other about pending cases.

Full TimesLIVE report

JSC letter