The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) adjourned the hearing of Cape Judge President John Hlophe until ”later notice” on Tuesday.
The hearing was scheduled to start at 9am but Hlophe’s lawyers were not present.
Advocate Gilbert Marcus, who is representing the Constitutional Court judges in the unprecedented case, said Hlophe’s lawyers were running late.
”They are at the airport,” he told JSC committee chairperson Judge Lex Mpati at 9am.
”The matter will stand down until later notice,” said Mpati.
Some lawyers and journalists then left the room to have coffee while waiting for Hlophe’s legal team to arrive.
Hlophe stands accused of trying to influence two Constitutional Court judges — Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta — in a judgement relating to African National Congress president Jacob Zuma.
He has, in turn, complained that the judges of the Constitutional Court violated his rights by releasing a media statement on the allegations against him without offering him the opportunity to respond.
Hlophe took the matter to the High Court in Johannesburg, which ruled that the Constitutional Court judges had infringed his rights, but that the JSC hearing should go ahead as planned.
On Tuesday last week the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) held that the Constitutional Court justices did not act unlawfully when they made a complaint to the JSC against Hlophe without first affording him an opportunity to be heard. They had also not acted unlawfully by issuing the media statement.
Hlophe’s lawyers confirmed last week that he would take his challenge to the complaint against him to the Constitutional Court.
”I have now been informed that instructions have been taken to bring an application for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court,” said Vuyani Ngalwana at last Wednesday’s stuttering start to the JSC hearing on the complaint at a Johannesburg hotel.
”So this is not the end of the matter.”
An application to the Constitutional Court would place the judges in a difficult position as they would be adjudicating a matter relating to themselves.
The JSC hearings were postponed last Wednesday after Ngalwana presented the JSC with a sick note saying Hlophe was suffering from ”severe influenza”.
On Saturday, the hearings were postponed again after Hlophe changed his legal counsel. — Sapa