/ 16 July 2009

Friends of Hlophe say he’s been mistreated by media

A lobby group hoping to see Cape Judge President John Hlophe in the chief justice's chair say he has been attacked and mistreated by the media.

A lobby group hoping to see Cape Judge President John Hlophe in the chief justice’s chair say he has been attacked and mistreated by the media.

”President Hlophe has been under attack, vicious attacks in the media by certain individuals that we think have a certain agenda to manipulate the system in order for things to be swayed in their way,” said Gauteng convenor of the Justice for Hlophe Alliance, Jabu Khuluse, at a press briefing in Johannesburg on Thursday.

The alliance declined to elaborate on who the ”certain individuals” were.

”South Africa cannot afford to lose the talent of a young man who is capable of transforming the judiciary and also ensuring the independence of the judiciary.”

In a move described by the alliance themselves as ”out of the norm”, Justice for Hlophe has set its sights on seeing Hlophe as the next chief justice.

”Our short term goal is to make sure that the honourable judge president Hlophe becomes the next chief justice of the Constitutional Court,” said spokesperson Percy Gumbi.

It has nominated him, and Hlophe has signed the nomination letter, to the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) for four vacancies in the Constitutional Court.

Hlophe is currently on special leave after Constitutional Court judges lodged a complaint with the JSC in May last year, alleging that Hlophe had tried to influence a judgement they were working on relating to President Jacob Zuma.

Advocate Marumo Moerane, JSC spokesperson, said nominations for the four vacancies closed on Wednesday. The vacancies arise as Chief Justice Pius Langa and justices Yvonne Mokgoro, Kate O’ Regan and Albie Sachs are to retire at the end of the year.

A shortlist would be released on July 25. The list would then be made available to the legal fraternity to provide comments on the suitability of each candidate. Once the JSC held public interviews with the shortlisted candidates, it would furnish a list of seven names to Zuma, who would fill the four posts from this list.

The chief justice post may not necessarily be filled by a nominated candidate. It is the president’s prerogative, who has in the past elected to consult the JSC on his selection.

Gumbi detailed Hlophe’s career and added that his qualifications and career background as well as his strong views on transformation made him the ideal candidate. The alliance believed Hlophe was the best man for the job.

”The law affects everyone. We don’t expect anything from him. All we expect is to ensure that transformation of the judiciary takes place. We don’t know who the other candidates are but we haven’t heard anyone coming out and saying these things that kindled us in terms of transformation of the judiciary,” he said.

”The independence of the judiciary, the accessibility of the judiciary, the language issue, we haven’t heard anyone saying those things and as far as we’re concerned Judge Hlophe is the only one who is saying that.”

He declined to elaborate on how many people were part of the group and added that it would function like an NGO and was funded out of the member’s pockets.

Gumbi describe Hlophe a ”young, energetic, independent thinker” and a ”visionary possessing astute leadership characteristics”.

The alliance would also ”monitor the roll-out” of transformation, once a new chief justice was appointed.

”What we are going to do is monitor the roll-out of transformation. We going to say to whoever has been appointed, these are the issues that we have and we want to see these things change because they are imperative for the judiciary to function independently.

”Now we will ask them, when are you going to achieve this, give us a date, commit, then we will come back to the person and say ‘have you done this?’,” Gumbi said.

Hlophe has repeatedly called for transformation of the judiciary, recently saying South Africa’s mix of English and Dutch law needs to be ”Africanised” to make it more relevant. He also believed that there was a need for courts to use African languages to make them more accessible.

Zuma, opening a judges conference this month, also encouraged transformation. – Sapa