Judicial rot stops with John Hlophe

The news that Judge John Hlophe has been found guilty of gross misconduct 12 years after two Constitutional Court judges accused him of trying to influence their rulings on a case involving former president Jacob Zuma might appear to be a bit out of place now, considering how times have changed.

It is good that a judge as senior as Hlophe faces impeachment – but that he successfully fended off the judiciary’s attempts to hold him to account for over a decade is an indictment on this important arm of government.

The shocking aspect of the finding against Hlophe is not that it has been confirmed by a body of his peers that he tried to influence two judges in the country’s highest court, it is that the country’s legal system has somehow managed to find itself in the dock because one of its own got through the cracks and landed in a very influential position, crooked as he was.

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Although all three arms of government – the legislative (parliament), the executive (Cabinet) and judiciary (courts) – are equally important, only the judiciary carries with it the natural requirement that it be beyond reproach.

While politicians can survive being labelled as liars, dishonest and even incompetent but still keep their jobs, members of the judiciary, especially judges, are expected to be above all that.

A judge is nothing without his/her credibility and Hlophe has lost his credibility. What is worse is that he attempted to take down with him a whole arm of government simply to do the bidding of his political masters.

It took 12 years for the case against Hlophe to reach finality because he knew how to play the system against itself. He perfected the Stalingrad legal approach of throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, at his accusers and waiting for them to disentangle themselves before tying them up again.

It is a strategy not entirely too dissimilar to one adopted by the same man whose case he was found guilty of trying to influence.

Hlophe might have succeeded in getting sections of society to look at the judiciary with suspicion, but his rather delayed exposure as a blight on the legal system is proof that state capture failed to capture the only remaining arm of government.

It was this arm of government that former public protector Thuli Madonsela turned to when she needed to shine the spotlight on the rot in the other arms of government.

Had the state capture architects succeeded in getting the likes of Hlophe to influence decisions in South Africa’s apex court, it would most probably have been lights out for the country’s young democracy.

It was not for lack of trying that politicians didn’t get their wishes with regards to the judiciary.

The Judicial Service Commission’s composition was at one stage so heavily loaded with political appointments that it was feared there could be a clear party-political influence on the decisions of the JSC, which would have in essence meant the capture of the judiciary.

The impending impeachment of Hlophe, although long delayed and obstructed by legal strategy, is the fight-back that the people of South Africa deserve.

In the footnotes of South Africa’s history during the so-called nine wasted years, Justices Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta must be noted for their courage to remove the blight on SA’s legal system.