Cape Judge President John Hlophe’s acceptance of payments from the Oasis asset management group raise serious questions about his suitability for leadership in the judiciary, Democratic Alliance (DA) justice spokesperson Sheila Camerer said on Friday.
She also called for the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to reopen its investigation into Hlophe.
Camerer was reacting to court papers, which this week 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’s 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 raise 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 judgement,” she said.
”Clearly, he should have recused himself from the matter.”
Having made the decision, Hlophe continued to receive payments from Oasis totalling nearly R200 000 at a substantially increased monthly rate, she said.
She said Hlophe needs to confirm publicly that he is no longer taking payments from Oasis, and that he is no longer in the pay of any actual or potential litigants in his court.
The affair emphasises how necessary it is to legislate a code of ethics and conduct for judges as soon as possible.
The JSC announced in December, after an extraordinarily protracted probe, that there was no evidence to contradict Hlophe’s assertion that he received verbal permission from late justice minister Dullah Omar to take on the Oasis post. — Sapa