DA, ANC join hands to stop Judge Hlophe’s JSC nomination

Muhammad Amin

The DA has launched a bid to prevent Judge John Hlophe from sitting as Parliament’s representative on the Judicial Services Commission which fired him for gross misconduct just five months ago.

The ANC has given the interdict a GNU thumbs up, with its secretary general, Fikile Mbalula, criticising Hlophe’s appointment. Several ANC backbenchers had supported Hlophe’s nomination.

The DA argues it would be irrational to allow Hlophe to participate as a member of the organisation that appoints and disciplines South Africa’s judges.

“While we accept that it is the prerogative of political parties to nominate persons to serve on the JSC, it does not follow that a former Judge, who was impeached for gross misconduct, can be designated by Parliament to serve on the body that found him guilty of this misconduct,” the official opposition said Tuesday.

It filed papers in the Western Cape High Court on Monday seeking to interdict Hlophe from taking up a JSC seat and to set aside the National Assembly vote to designate him as Parliament’s representative.

Hlophe’s JSC appointment was a “clear conflict of interest and undermines the independence of South Africa’s Judiciary”, the DA said.

It claimed Parliament was obliged to protect the judiciary’s independence and that any representative elected to the JSC needed to embody the values integrity, dignity and independence.

“Parliament’s failure to ensure this, risks undermining the JSC’s processes for electing judges and investigating judicial conduct, thereby endangering the rule of law in South Africa and the proper functioning of the Judiciary,” the DA said.

Mbalula said in a Newzroom Africa interview Hlophe’s appointment was “wrong”: “I’m not against Hlophe, but it is wrong that you have been impeached and sit in the [JSC] committee and ask judges about the wrongdoings you yourself have committed. How do you do that, because a political party you belong to has decided you must sit there and question others? It is morally bankrupt and incorrect.

“Morally, if I were in the party [MK Party] he belongs to, I would not have gone for that person, but given who [Jacob] Zuma is, he will do that.”