CJ asks police to unmask 'fake news' forces

Confronting the issue of fake news attacks on judges who have found against the EFF and the Public Protector on social media, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng urged those with evidence of captured or corrupt judges to provide concrete proof and stop hiding behind fictional identities, notes Legalbrief. Addressing the media on Friday, he said his office had asked National Police Commissioner General Kehla Sitole to ‘uncover the real forces behind the masks who are making apparently gratuitous allegations of corruption or capture against the judiciary’. Recently, notes a News24 report, a ‘list’ had been making the rounds on social media alleging some judges had been paid by President Cyril Ramaphosa's CR17 campaign funds. ‘Tell us which judge has been captured or corrupted, and by whom. If money or any benefit was given, for how much? When? And produce verifiable documentary or electronic proof,’ Mogoeng said. On a separate matter he said judiciary spokesperson Nathi Mncube had shown him a tweet by someone who claimed to have informed him that certain judges in the Free State had allegedly been ‘captured’ by ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule and that he had not acted upon it. ‘I have never received that information. I have been assured by all the provincial leaders of colleagues against whom disturbing allegations of corruption and capture have been made that those allegations are false,’ Mogoeng said. ‘In the absence of concrete proof … I believe my colleagues. Everybody with evidence to support these damaging allegations that any judge is corrupt or has been captured must stop hiding behind fictional identities … please make your true identity and contact details known to us and the South African public.’