The Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) will investigate a complaint against suspended Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe for advising an advocate to tell his client to ‘fuck off’.

However, a Sunday Times report notes he is unlikely to face impeachment if found guilty.

Western Cape Advocate Anda Njeza complained to the JCC in December 2021 that Hlophe had told him to impart this to his client and that if his case was heard in open court he would dismiss it with costs.

Njeza alleged the Judge President said his case was a waste of time and when the advocate insisted his client wanted a hearing, Hlophe ‘kept telling me that I did not want to listen’.

The case involved the return of a firearm to Njeza’s client. The advocate said Hlophe ‘indicated that he would never give a taxi driver a firearm as he knows how dangerous taxi drivers can be’.

In a decision last week, Deputy Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, acting chair of the JCC, said she had considered Njeza’s complaint and was ‘satisfied’ that if it were to be established, ‘the appropriate remedial action against (Hlophe) will be limited to one or more of the remedial actions envisaged in section 17(8) of the JSC (Judicial Service Commission) Act’.

‘This means that the sanction will not be impeachment,’ she said.

In his complaint to the JCC, Njeza said: ‘I felt as a matter of principle that I should lay this complaint. A judge, let alone a Judge President, should not treat any litigant or any legal representative with the kind of indignity the applicant and I were treated with.’

He added that Hlophe’s conduct meant his client was denied his constitutional right to court access.

First Sunday Times report