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Judge Tintswalo Nana Makhubele. (Judges matter, GroundUp)
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) will notify President Cyril Ramaphosa to suspend Judges Tintswalo Makhubele and Mushtak Parker pending finalization of the complaints against them.
The JSC considered the relevant complaints and submissions at its virtual meeting held last week, spokesman Carel Fourie said.
It adopted the recommendations of the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) and requested the President of the Supreme Court to appoint a Judicial Conduct Tribunal to investigate and report on the complaints against both judges.
The civil society group #UniteBehind filed a complaint against Makhubele, a judge at the Gauteng High Court.
She said she undermined the independence of the judiciary by simultaneously serving as a judge in Pretoria and chair of the interim control board of the South African Passenger Rail Agency (Prasa).
The group alluded to allegations that it tried to enforce secret settlement agreements with companies linked to corruption, City Press reported.
According to the report, he allegedly played a controversial role in a deal to invest R1 billion of Prasa’s assets in VBS Mutual Bank.
The complaints against Parker were filed by the Cape Bar Council and ten Western Cape High Court judges.
JCC Acting President, Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo, said that if the allegations were proven in both complaints, it would constitute a serious misconduct.
News24 previously reported on the only complaint related to an alleged assault on Parker by Chief Justice John Hlophe. Several of his colleagues at the bank accused of having given materially inconsistent accounts of the incident.
He allegedly admitted that “shortly after” the alleged assault, he had realized that the events might not have developed in the way he originally perceived.
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In the decision, Zondo said that “if the first complaint is established, it seems it will mean that the defendant [Parker] has acted dishonestly by giving two contradictory and mutually exclusive accounts of the incident that occurred in his office between him and Chief Justice Hlophe on February 25, 2019. “
“Our point of view can only be based on the facts before us. On these facts, if the first complaint is established, the position will be that the defendant has no explanation to give these contradictory versions, one of which must be false. “, He said. additional.
“If the complaint is established, it will also mean that when the defendant changed his version in early February 2020 and said that the presiding judge had not assaulted him, he did so knowing that there was an affidavit in the custody of Judge Wille in the that he had said under oath that the presiding judge had assaulted him. “
The second complaint, filed by the Cape Bar Council, also concerns Parker’s alleged dishonesty related to not disclosing a trust deficit in his law firm’s trust account and not declaring it to the commission before becoming a judge.
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“With respect to the second complaint, we consider that, if established, it will prima facie indicate a serious fault on the part of the defendant,” Zondo said.
“The existence of a fiduciary deficit could indicate that the defendant and / or his partners misappropriated funds from his trustee creditors while practicing as an attorney. If established, the misappropriation of funds would be serious conduct that, among other things, it may adversely affect the integrity of the defendant.
“It will also indicate prima facie that the defendant would have acted in violation of the law firm’s rules over a long period of time by failing to inform the law firm when there was a trust deficit in his law firm’s trust account.”
Zondo added that Parker’s failure to disclose that his law firm’s trust account had long been in deficit while he was managing director in his nomination questionnaire and in his commission interview was extremely serious.
– Compiled by Jenna Etheridge.
