Black judges slam JSC for airing bad decisions

They said the accusations should not allow transformation to be ‘put on the back burner’. A report in The Weekender says the 15 signatories include all the black judges from the Pretoria High Court and some from Johannesburg. Judge President Bernard Ngoepe did not sign. Among them is controversial Judge Nkola Motata, who faced criticism at the commission for the extent of his work backlog and because he left urgent matters incomplete while he attended a golf tournament. He is now on leave pending resolution of drunk driving charges. The petition expresses concern about the ‘serious negative insinuations’ made at the last hearing of the JSC. It complains about articles that quoted Appeal Court judges querying a number of decisions by ‘inexperienced’ High Court judges. The Appeal Court judges said these decisions indicated fundamental ignorance of basic legal principles or were in some other way seriously bad. The petitioners said that the Chief Justice should ‘take the lead in dealing with this negative reporting’. Full report in The Weekender

The JSC has been asked to reopen its probe of Cape Judge President John Hlophe\'s acceptance of payments from the Oasis asset management group, which, according to DA spokesperson Sheila Camerer raised serious questions about his suitability for leadership in the judiciary. According to a report on the IoL site, Camerer was reacting to court papers, which showed Hlophe accepted almost half a million rand from the group, much of it at a time when he was weighing up its application to sue his fellow judge Siraj Desai for defamation. Hlophe, who says the money was for out of pocket expenses incurred as a trustee of Oasis\' Crescent Retirement Fund, granted the application. The case is now before the High Court, where it will be heard by a judge specially flown in from Johannesburg. Camerer said the ‘cavalier’ fashion in which Hlophe had dealt with the payments raised serious questions about his suitability to continue in a leadership role in the judiciary. ‘That Judge Hlophe was unable to perceive the conflict of interest in a situation where he was the recipient of large amounts of money from Oasis but nevertheless gave them permission to sue one of his fellow judges, demonstrates a breathtaking lack of judgment,’ she said. ‘Clearly, he should have recused himself from the matter.’ Full report on the IoL site

Legal academics say the credibility of the judiciary is in the dock. When the case resumes in June, Hlophe might well be called as a witness, and, according to legal experts, the ramifications could include questions of whether lawyers representing Desai and Oasis can ever appear in these judges\' courts again and be certain of impartial treatment. University of Natal professor Robin Palmer is quoted in a Sunday Argus report as saying the case and the furore over Hlophe was ‘unprecedented’ and the saga highlighted the urgent need for judicial reform as proposed by the government. Palmer said Hlophe, in the light of his relationship with Oasis, should have recused himself from deciding whether Oasis could sue a fellow judge. A situation where a judge was facing defamation claims and the Judge President could be called to testify and possibly face hostile cross-examination was ‘highly undesirable’. ‘Judges should be outside of the arena, not at its centre,’ Palmer said. He added there was room for concern that neither judge would be regarded as impartial in other cases where lawyers involved in this case appeared. ‘Judges are only human and even if they are neutral towards counsel, they are vulnerable to potential accusations of bias one way or the other,’ Palmer said. Full Sunday Argus report