/ 30 May 2009

Hlophe’s blotted copy book

Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe’s spat with Constitutional Court judges might have killed his chances of assuming a seat in the highest court of the land.

Hlophe has been involved in a long-running feud with the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) after 13 permanent and acting judges of the Constitutional Court accused him of lobbying two of them to find in Jacob Zuma’s favour in a search and seizure case.

The allegation came to the attention of the JSC after all 13 judges lodged a complaint with it and Hlophe, in turn, lodged a counter-complaint, in which he accused the judges of infringing his rights by publicising a media statement before hearing his side of the story.

Hlophe’s confidant and University of Cape Town administrator Paul Ngobeni this week said Hlophe was being persecuted just like Zuma for his stance on racism, adding that the judiciary is ”the last area where whites can exert influence, even though they are in the minority”.

But Luthuli House officials are adamant that Zuma will not risk his re-engineered image by appointing tainted judicial officers like Hlophe. Although Hlophe acted ostensibly to favour Zuma’s case, this will not necessarily help him in his quest to become the country’s chief justice.

”Hlophe might have thought he was helping, but now the whole thing has spun out of control,” one official said. ”After all his court issues Zuma wants to have a clean slate, and someone like Hlophe will not help that.”

The thinking is that because Zuma did not directly ask Hlophe to intervene, he does not ”owe” Hlophe anything. Zuma also does not want to be associated with Hlophe’s myriad legal problems because he wants to show that he will not compromise the judiciary by appointing a chief justice who has a cloud of suspicion hanging over him. If he is nominated for a position on the Constitutional Court Hlophe will face an uphill battle to convince the JSC that he is a suitable candidate to serve on it.

A recently appointed JSC member says judges are were held to high standards that Hlophe has shown he might not be able to adhere to.