BL Premium reports that after a two-year delay, a date for the hearing of the 12-year-old gross misconduct complaint against Western Cape judge president John Hlophe has finally been set.
Judicial Service Commission (JSC) secretary Sello Chiloane advised on Monday that the 2008 complaint lodged against Hlophe by the Constitutional Court, after he was accused of trying to persuade two of its justices to swing a judgment in favour of the then ANC president Jacob Zuma, will be heard on 26 to 30 October. The hearing has been put on hold since June 2018, because of an unresolved fees dispute between the justice department and Hlophe’s attorney, Barnabas Xulu. Chiloane referred queries about whether the fees dispute had been resolved to Xulu, who did not respond to questions on the issue. The JSC’s failure to reach any resolution of that 2008 complaint, which has spawned multiple court challenges and hascost taxpayers millions of rand in legal costs, has seen it facing growing criticism that it is failing to hold judges accused of wrongdoing to account. That criticism intensified when Western Cape deputy judge president Patricia Goliath lodged a second gross misconduct against Hlophe earlier this year.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Karyn Maughan at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
Read too, Date set for tribunal into Judge Hlophe complaint to resume, at The Citizen
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