/ 19 March 2009

Hlophe defamation bid granted

An application by a University of Florida law professor to sue Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe was granted on Thursday.

An application by a University of Florida law professor to sue Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe was granted on Thursday.

Winston Nagan is seeking more than R6-million for remarks Hlophe made about him while delivering a judgement in March 2007.

Judge Steven Majiedt, who was brought to the Cape High Court from the Northern Cape division, also decided to have the costs of the application stand over for determination at the trial.

”I am satisfied that the applicant has made out a prima facie case in as much as there are sufficient averments which, if established at the trial, would entitle him to the relief sought,” Majiedt said in his judgement.

Hlophe offered what Nagan labelled a ”grudging and conditional” apology for the remarks. He did not oppose the application to sue, but he does intend to fight the R6-million claim.

Before anyone can sue a judge, they have to secure the permission of the court in which the action is to be launched.

Nagan’s legal counsel, Anwar Albertus, told reporters outside the court that his client had been ”injured in his field”.

”Damage has been done to my client’s reputation, particularly in the field in which he works in,” Albertus said.

Albertus said that Nagan was industrious, professional and eminent in his field.

He said Nagan had worked for the United Nations, is a law professor at the University of Florida in the US and that he had heard several matters while sitting on the bench of the Cape High Court.

The claim arose from an appeal Nagan heard as an acting judge, alongside Hlophe, in late 2006.

When Hlophe handed down the judgement in March 2007, he told the court that the understanding had been that Nagan would write the ruling ”which is in accordance with the practice in this division”.

However, he said, Nagan had left the country, ”for Florida, I think, in the United States”, and attempts to get hold of him had been unsuccessful.

”In fact, there were other matters in respect of which he did not write judgements. Other colleagues have had to write judgements for him.”

Nagan claims that these words meant he was unprofessional and guilty of dereliction of his duty as a judge, and that Hlophe had damaged his international reputation. — Sapa