Tribunal finds judge guilty of gross misconduct
Publish date: 13 January 2025
Issue Number: 1108
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: South Africa
A Judicial Conduct Tribunal has found suspended Gauteng Judge Nana Makhubele guilty of gross misconduct for accepting a job to chair the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) interim board after having been recommended to serve as a High Court judge from January 2018. The tribunal’s decision must still be considered by the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), which may accept or reject its findings. The Sunday Times reports that the tribunal, chaired by retired Judge President Achmat Jappie, said its unanimous view was that Makhubele’s version – that Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo had consented to a later starting date for her to take up judicial office – was ‘most unlikely’. It noted that Mlambo had testified that he had met with Makhubele in January together with Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba and at the meeting she did not mention her Prasa appointment, stating that she could not commence with judicial office because she still had work as president of the Water Tribunal.
The tribunal notes that Makhubele had denied the meeting happened in January, saying it happened ‘firstly, in March 2018, (which) later changes to February 2018’. It said Makhubele’s evidence on the meeting was ‘not credible and cannot be true’. It was ‘deliberately misleading, and it was unambiguously insufficient as an explanation for her conduct to cast any doubt on the credible version of Mlambo JP’, said the tribunal. ‘Accordingly, we find on the totality of the evidence that the respondent has made herself guilty of gross misconduct.’ The Sunday Times notes that the tribunal made a second guilty finding against Makhubele. It said that, through her conduct as chair of Prasa, she had breached section 14(4)(e) of the JSC Act – which prohibits wilful or grossly negligent conduct that is incompatible with judicial office. The second finding related to a complaint that she had not acted honourably or in a manner befitting a judicial officer when she was chair of Prasa. The complainant, civil society organisation #UniteBehind, said that during her time as chair she pushed through the settlement of claims worth about R59m with a set of companies in the Siyaya group, owned by Makhensa Mabunda, and on terms very favourable to the group.