Minister bemoans pace of dealing with complaints

Justice Minister Michael Masutha has criticised the slow rate at which the Judicial Service Commission deals with complaints against judges – and he plans to take up the issue with Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng. Speaking ahead of tabling the R1.9bn budget allocated to the Office of the Chief Justice in the National Assembly‚ Masutha said there were complaints against judges that remained unresolved‚ ranging from delayed judgments and gross misconduct to racist remarks. According to a TimesLIVE report, he bemoaned the fact that some of the unresolved complaints were as old as ‘over a decade’. 'This requires that we engage with the Chief Justice and the judiciary to look at the effectiveness of the current complaints handling process. There's been complaints against judges that are still on the roll ... that date back over a decade‚ unresolved because of legal disputes around the institutional arrangements to process such complaints‚’ said Masutha. The report notes that a complaint of gross misconduct by 10 justices of the Constitutional Court against Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe‚ filed in 2008‚ and another one against Judge Nkola Motata, stemming from drunk driving charges in 2007‚ are among the long outstanding complaints before the JSC. Memme Sejosengwe‚ secretary-general in the Office of the Chief Justice‚ said there were 54 complaints against judicial officers in the last financial year alone (2016/17). ‘There's 54 complaints that have been received between the period April 2016 to March 2017‚’ said Sejosengwe. ‘Of those 37 were finalised and 17 are outstanding.’ Masutha also noted transformation of the judiciary was still on the agenda. ‘Out of the 246 judges in active service‚ 159 (66%) are male and 87 (34%) are female ... (and) 160 (65%) judges are black and 86 (35%) are white.’

– TimesLIVE