'Hlophe the Smokescreen': Not at a theatre near you

Whenever I raise the issues surrounding Judge John Hlophe’s latest endeavours I am set upon by Paul Ngobeni, the man who cannot see wrong in His Lordship and is hell-bent on ensuring that he is made Chief Justice of South Africa.

Unfortunately in his quest to explain why this country badly needs a judge steeped in controversy to lead its judiciary he fails to answer the same question that Hlophe does: Can you ever have a judge — never mind a Chief Justice — who has tried to influence the decisions of his fellow judges for personal advantage?

The Hlophe support lobby goes on and on about Africanising the law, transforming the judiciary and bringing through more black jurists — I have an answer for them: great idea, the sooner the better but not under Hlophe.

Now we are being advised that the hearings into the Hlophe debacle will be heard behind closed doors.

Helen Zille, the Democratic Alliance leader, has made it clear that she is totally opposed to that idea while pointing out that it is not consistent with Section 9(3) of the Judicial Service Commission Act which requires JSC meetings to be held in public.

The point is why would you hold a meeting regarding Hlophe, of all people, behind closed doors?

If ever we are to regain just a small semblance of confidence in our judiciary then the man who has occasioned the most damage to it should not be the one being dealt with in this manner.

Transparency should be the number one priority in this case.

In this regard any of you who wish to discuss transformation, affirmative action and Africanisation of our law, please don’t waste any of our time by linking Hlophe to this exercise. There are many, many, many black judges who would do the Chief Justice role credit and fulfil those tasks.

Hlophe would not.