/ 14 August 2009

Hlophe does damage control

Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe has written to Chief Justice Pius Langa denying that he had said he would not shake Langa’s hand because it would be ‘shaking the hand of a white man”.

The statement was reported in an interview with Hlophe carried in last week’s edition of the Mail & Guardian.

In the same interview he said the judges of the Constitutional Court had ‘sold out”.

In the letter to Langa, Hlophe denied ever refusing to shake Langa’s hand, saying that he had done this twice at his (Hlophe’s) JSC hearings in Johannesburg.

‘I could never have spoken in such disparaging terms about you,” Hlophe said.

He also denied statements attributed to him about the Constitutional Court, saying that he held the court in high regard and could never have said it had ‘sold out”.

‘I have consistently stated both publicly and privately that I regard the work of the Constitutional Court as sacred,” Hlophe wrote.

This week he also wrote to Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi denying that he had referred to Buthelezi and Zulu monarch Goodwill Zwelithini during the interview with the M&G.

In a letter written in Zulu, apparently designed to offset the impression that he had spoken ill of the Zulu royal family, he said he needed ‘to hurry and explain himself” to Buthelezi, Zwelithini’s uncle.

He denied mentioning that Zwelithini was exiled to protect him from Buthelezi’s ambitions, adding that he had read that Zwelithini was in fact sent into exile to protect him from another prince.

Hlophe told the M&G that appointing someone else ahead of him as an interim chief justice would give President Jacob Zuma’s enemies a ‘chance to regroup”.

He suggested his life might be at risk, saying he was ‘not bullet-proof”.

Last week President Jacob Zuma nominated Judge Sandile Ngcobo to replace Langa, who is stepping down in October, along with judges Yvonne Mokgoro, Kate O’Regan and Albie Sachs.

To support his claim that he might be at risk, Hlophe used as an analogy the belief among many Zulus that Zwelithini was exiled to protect him from the IFP leader.

Meanwhile, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) appears to be scrutinising the M&G interview.

This week JSC secretary Vuyelwa Masangwana wrote to the M&G asking the paper to provide written confirmation of the accuracy of the report.

Asked to confirm whether the JSC would be investigating a case of misconduct against Hlophe, JSC spokesperson Marumo Moerane said on Thursday that he had not been in contact with the JSC secretariat, but promised to ‘make inquiries”.