Radebe misled public on Hlophe's costs

This is contrary to what the South African public was told last year. It was reported that Justice Director-General Nonkululeko Sindane said: "The correct position is that for any person that we provide legal support to, they have to provide an undertaking for the completeness of the settlement of the bill at the end of the process if they are not successful".

This was confirmed by Justice Minister Jeff Radebe on 7 June 2011 at a pre-budget media briefing, when he said that the ministry would pay for Hlophe's costs but only once he had provided a written undertaking to repay the state in the event that he lost his case at the Constitutional Court. He reportedly said "That's what we have done for everybody".

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Hemi300c said:

Luckily I have now learnt to tell when they are lying - when their mouth moves.

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Kriegler said the decision “ascribed to” Radebe was “legally and ethically indefensible”.

“There has never been a suggestion that the judge president of the Cape court was acting in the course of his duties when on his own admission he raised with two justices in their offices in Braamfontein, the politically sensitive Zuma/Thint cases they were considering at the time,” Kriegler said in the statement.

“The minister’s alleged reliance on the Constitutional importance of the complaints is equally unsound. No constitutional issue has ever been raised in the two complaints against the judge ... The fundamental issue has at all times been Judge Hlophe’s fitness for judicial office.”

Kriegler said that Hlophe racked up the legal bills over more than four years while he, “retaining his office and its benefits, vigorously – and thus far successfully – fought to put off the final determination of the truth of his conversation with the two justices”.

“In the circumstances it is unconscionable that such costs are to be borne by the citizenry,” he said.

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