It was irrelevant that John Hlophe had failed to influence Constitutional Court judges to find in favour of former president Jacob Zuma, the Gauteng high court heard on Tuesday. Just that he tried made him guilty of gross misconduct, said counsel for the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) Vincent Maleka SC.
Maleka was addressing a full bench of the court on the second day of the Western Cape judge president’s case to set aside a finding of gross misconduct by the JSC. In August last year the JSC, by majority, decided to refer Hlophe to parliament for possible impeachment, the first referral of its kind in SA’s democratic history.
The gross misconduct finding related to a 2008 complaint by all the then-justices of the Constitutional Court that Hlophe had sought to improperly influence the outcome of cases related to corruption charges against Zuma that were pending before their court.
In April last year a Judicial Conduct Tribunal (JCT) found Hlophe had breached section 165 of the constitution in that he had improperly attempted to influence two ConCourt judges to violate their oaths of office and that his conduct interfered with the independence of the highest court.
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