Dali Mpofu’s ‘shut up’ incident and the English nuance excuse

It was briefly cheering that the Zondo commission demonstrated that there’s still some bite in the old judicial bulldog.

However, the post-1994 litter of pups is toothless.

The Legal Practice Council (LPC) has tied itself into intellectual knots to avoid having to chastise the legal enfant terrible of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), advocate Dali Mpofu.

The LPC has ruled that is not “rude or discourteous” to tell a minister and his advocate to “shut up” in a judicial commission hearing.

ALSO READ: ‘Criticism is fine, but insults are unwelcomed’ – Mpofu on JSC interviews

Well, that is, not if you grew up speaking isiXhosa and English is your second language.

The LPC’s bizarre finding relates to an outburst by Mpofu during a sitting of then Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

Mpofu objected to the line of questioning by Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan’s counsel, advocate Michelle le Roux, commanding her to “shut up”.

Zondo, old-school fuddy-duddy that he is, found all this objectionable.

“No legal practitioner, including Mr Mpofu, has the right … to tell any other person … to shut up,” Zondo said.

Zondo referred the incident to the LPC.

An LPC investigatory committee found that Mpofu should be the subject of a misconduct hearing for failing to show “civility and respect” to judicial officers.

In March, the Johannesburg Society of Advocates found Mpofu guilty of an ethical breach.

The LPC’s investigatory committee argued that “nothing justified telling a witness or a colleague to shut up”.

It found that Mpofu had “aggravated” the matter with his “contemptuous conduct” towards Zondo, when rebuked.

READ MORE: Legal Practice Council clears Dali Mpofu of misconduct for ‘shut up’ incident

Mpofu’s social media posting clearly shows that he understands idiomatic English.

There’s also plenty of evidence, from his soliloquies in court, that his English is fluent.

So, it is puzzling that the LPC accepted Mpofu’s explanation that he had never understood that the phrase “shut up” could be thought “disrespectful, demeaning or insulting”.

No one from the Eastern Cape kraal where he grew up, Mpofu explained to the LPC committee, would have found his words offensive.

The LPC finding records that “[Mpofu] told the committee English is his second language.

If he had been allowed to use his mother tongue, isiXhosa, he would have said thula (shut up) or vala umlomo (close mouth) which are acceptable expressions to ask a person to keep quiet.”

The disciplinary committee’s chair, Dr Ramola Naidoo, writes: “Mr Mpofu’s utterance of the words shut up was neither rude nor could they be interpreted as rude and discourteous conclusively on an objective test and based on the ordinary grammatical meaning of those words as used by members of his rural village.”

READ MORE: ‘Complain to the powers that be,’ says Mpofu on calls to step down from JSC

The LPC ruling opens the door to a marvellous loophole in a country where there are 10 official spoken languages, to justify crassness and abuse.

I look forward to explaining that in my childhood vernacular, “Jou ma se p**s” is not the crude expression – “Your mother’s genitals” – that it translates to in English.

On the contrary, it’s a jocular, colloquial usage that merely signals robust disagreement.

It should definitely not be construed as misogynistic, bigoted or impolite.

Especially not when used in reaction to the rulings of our guardians of judicial standards.