An appeal to uphold sexual harassment findings against former ambassador Norman Mashabane was again delayed in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.
Mashabane was to have appeared in the court but the case was put down for December 1, Public Servants’ Association (PSA) deputy general manager Manie de Clercq said.
He said the delay was to give the judge a change to read documents filed in the case.
The case has been delayed several times since it was brought to court in January last year.
The PSA and Department of Foreign Affairs employee Lara Swart have asked the Pretoria High Court to overturn Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s decision to uphold Mashabane’s appeal after disciplinary hearings found him guilty on 22 sex-harassment charges.
At the time he was ambassador to Indonesia, where Swart, one of several complainants, was stationed.
He was found guilty at an initial hearing in 2001 on a battery of charges that included stroking the buttocks of an employee, molesting a staff member in a lift and making suggestive motions with his tongue to another.
The panel recommended he be fired, but he appealed the judgement and was allowed to continue in his post pending the outcome. In June 2003 another charge was laid against him, and he was again found guilty.
The findings were reversed by Dlamini-Zuma, acting as the appeal authority, who suggested that Mashabane was being dragged through the mud for exposing motor vehicle fraud at the embassy.
The high court ruling is expected to clear the way for probes by the Commission on Gender Equality and the Public Protector, which were suspended pending the outcome of the hearing. – Sapa