JSC legal battle: Mpofu says DA wants to condemn Hlophe ‘for life beyond the grave’

The challenge to former judge John Hlophe’s appointment to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is akin to digging up his grave after he is already dead.

This is according to Advocate Dali Mpofu.

The urgent applications brought by the Democratic Alliance (DA), Freedom Under Law (FUL), and Corruption Watch continued into the second day in the Western Cape High Court in Cape Town on Friday.

The applicants are contesting Hlophe’s designation to the JSC, a move that has drawn criticism following his impeachment by Parliament earlier this year.

His dismissal as a judge followed a JSC finding of misconduct.

DA ‘targeting’ Hlophe over JSC designation

On Friday, Hlophe’s legal representative, Advocate Thabani Masuku, argued before the full bench—comprising Gauteng High Court judges Colleen Collis and Selby Baqwa, as well as Free State High Court Judge Johannes Daffue—that the DA was targeting his client.

“Hlophe’s punishment, if you want to put it, ended through his impeachment,” he said on Friday.

“The logic of the DA and Corruption Watch is anti-constitutional because what it says is that this court must target former judges who seek to play a meaningful role as citizens after their impeachment or removal.”

ALSO READ: National Assembly accused of ‘passing the buck’ to MK party over Hlophe’s JSC appointment

The lawyer stated that preventing Hlophe from serving on the JCS was limiting his rights as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party.

“He is a member of the MK party and it has a right to nominate him for any committee or any constitutional body, which requires members of the National Assembly to be appointed.

“To put a barrier to that is really to limit his rights unduly,” Masuku continued.

Watch the proceedings below:

Masuku stressed that neither the Constitution nor Parliament’s rules automatically disqualified Hlophe from being appointed to the JSC, despite his prior removal as a judge.

“What you are being asked that Dr Hlophe must surrender is that over and above the fact that he was removed as a judge in the most despicable way, we must then impose a ban on his Section 19 rights.

“I [mention] Section 19 because only the president is barred from seeking to hold public office after removal, not anybody else. Not the public protector, not the chapter nine institutions’ heads [and] not judges.”

Review applications with costs.

Masuku further highlighted that the court papers “say a lot more about Hlophe in his personal capacity”.

“What you are being asked there is whether there was any attention paid to Dr Hlophe’s moral standing. They call him a disgraced judge.”

The advocate argued that Hlophe was essentially being asked to repent.

READ MORE: Tension as Mpofu accused of abusing court’s time in Hlophe JSC legal battle

“This is another platform to berate him. He’s moved out of the judiciary, he is no longer a threat to their interests, but so why continuously drag him to court when he is now performing his functions in a different role.”

He asked the court to dismiss both the applicants’ interdict and review applications with costs.

“There is similarly no basis on which the National Assembly’s decision to designate Dr Hlophe as a member in the JSC should be revoked, revised or set aside.”

MK party’s Mpofu defends Hlophe

Meanwhile, Advocate Dali Mpofu, representing the MK party, argued that the applications should not be entertained.

“This court should never allow itself to become the appeal tribunal of the National Assembly because that is what is being done. Our courts are being turned into a joke,” he said.

Mpofu stated that the DA would not run to court if Hlophe’s JSC appointment were to be blocked.

“We are here for one reason and one reason only, they lost a democratic vote in the Parliament of the people that represents all of us. This is not Parliament.”

He said the National Assembly’s vote to send Hlophe to the JSC, like his impeachment, was a political decision.

“On the basis of that, you want to condemn a person for life beyond the grave. You have condemned him, you have vilified him, you have booted him out of his job and now you go to the grave to dig the grave and say I want to kill you again.

“That’s what happening here. Let’s not glorify it with these pieces of paper. It is a lynching of black people,” Mpofu told the court on Friday.

The judgment in the matter has been reserved.

NOW READ: MK party slams case challenging Hlophe’s JSC appointment as ‘frivolous’