“WE therefore unanimously conclude that Judge President Hlophe is guilty of gross misconduct as envisaged in Section 177 of the Constitution.”
This is part of the damning judgment that was handed down by the Judicial Conduct Tribunal, which concluded that Hlophe has broken the law as he tried to influence Constitutional Court judges.
In a handed down judgment, the tribunal found that Hlophe wasn’t objective and proper consideration of the facts and probabilities.
The Constitutional Court found that Hlophe violated the constitutional conduct, threatened and interfered with the independence, impartiality, dignity and of the Constitutional Court.
“His conduct threatened public confidence in the judicial system. In our view, this constitutes gross misconduct,” said the judgment.
In a scathing judgement,The commission found that Hlophe was biased in his ruling.
We accept his word that many other lawyers, including judges, were equally concerned. But they abided the decision of the Constitutional Court.“It’s not clear why Judge President Hlophe considered it his duty, among all the judges in the country, to approach the Justices of the Constitutional Court to discuss the issue while they were still considering judgment. We have already emphasised the principle in respect of discussion of matters where judgment is pending.”
This comes after Hlophe threw out the corruption charges against ANC MP and former minister Bongani Bongo for allegedly attempting to bribe a parliamentary law adviser to derail a probe into state capture at Eskom.
Hlophe dismissed the case, saying there was no evidence on which a court would reasonably return a finding of guilt.
