Deputy Judge President reported to JSC

Masetlha has also lodged an application for the recusal of Magistrate Dreyer van der Merwe at the Hatfield Community Court. A report in The Sunday Independent says the Van der Merwe matter will have to be acted on by the prosecutor in Masetlha\'s Hatfield case, Matric Luphondo, when it resumes. Masetlha\'s steps followed the discovery that Jay Govender, the legal adviser to Zolile Ngcakani, the Inspector-General of Intelligence, secretly asked Shongwe and Van der Merwe to remove pages from their court records. The 72 pages consisted of a classified report written by Ngcakani relating to Masetlha and Masetlha\'s in camera affidavit. They formed part of the record in Masetlha\'s Pretoria High Court case of November last year, in which Masetlha claimed that President Thabo Mbeki had unlawfully terminated his employment; in his still continuing trial in Pretoria\'s Hatfield Community Court, where he is facing charges related to refusing to answer questions ‘put to him by the Inspector-General of Intelligence Services’; and in his appeal in the Constitutional Court. Both the judge and magistrate complied with Govender\'s request. None of Masetlha\'s legal team – his attorney and counsel in the matters at the Constitutional Court and the Hatfield Community Court – was informed by Govender or by either court of what had taken place. Full report in The Sunday Independent