John Hlophe: From SA's first impeached judge to MK Party's chief whip
Once lauded as one of the country’s foremost legal minds, Hlophe in a dramatic fall from grace earlier this year became one of the first judges to be impeached in post-democratic South Africa.
FILE: Former Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe. Picture: judgesmatter.co.za
JOHANNESBURG - Among the new MK Party Members of Parliament (MPs) set to be sworn in on Tuesday is controversial former judge president of the High Court in the Western Cape, John Hlophe.
Once lauded as one of the country’s foremost legal minds, Hlophe, in a dramatic fall from grace earlier this year, became one of the first judges to be impeached in post-democratic South Africa.
This on the back of a Judicial Conduct Tribunal’s finding that he was guilty of gross misconduct for attempting to improperly influence Constitutional Court justices, Chris Jafta and Bess Nkabinde, in 2008.
This was during a lynchpin appeal involving former President Jacob Zuma, who now leads the MK Party and his arms deal prosecution.
Hlophe’s impeachment saw him lose the lifelong judge’s salary he would have otherwise been entitled to.
But he’s now clawed his way back to another cushy taxpayer-funded position as an MP.
HLOPHE'S HISTORY
John Hlophe was just 36 years old when he was first appointed as a judge in 1995.
A mere four years later, in 1999, he was appointed deputy judge president; and a year later, in 2000, he was appointed judge president - a position he went on to hold for more than two decades.
His tenure was mired in controversy, though, and not just as a result of his ultimate impeachment and the events leading thereto.
In January 2020, his erstwhile deputy, Judge Patricia Goliath, lodged a complaint against Hlophe in which he was accused of trying to allocate "favourably disposed" judges in another case involving Zuma and even assaulting a fellow judge in his chambers, among other things. And while his impeachment rendered it moot in the end, he was also facing a tribunal over that.
In 2021, he also granted graft-accused African National Congress (ANC) MP Bongani Bongo a discharge in a highly controversial ruling that was last month overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal, which described some of his findings as being in conflict with established legal principles, not in line with the relevant legislation and “manifestly wrong”.
How his tenure as an MP, and more over the MK Party’s Chief Whip in Parliament will be characterised, remains to be seen.