Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Member of the Pan African Bar Association of SA, advocate Vuyani Ngalwana, is considering lodging a misconduct complaint against retired Constitutional Court Justice Johann Kriegler, following the lack of movement on the Western Cape High Court ruling that he retract berating comments against Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe.
Ngalwana successfully petitioned the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) to find Justice Kriegler guilty of misconduct following remarks the retired justice had made in several articles published by News24, IOL, TimesLive and the Mail & Guardian.
The JCC ruled that Justice Kriegler had flouted the Judicial Code of Conduct when he told an online publication that Hlophe was “unfit to be a judge”.
In its August ruling, the JCC stated that Ngalwana’s complaint alleged that Justice Kriegler had since 2009 persistently attacked Hlophe in his utterances after justices of the Constitutional Court laid a complaint of gross misconduct against Hlophe.
The JCC further ruled that Justice Kriegler’s argument that Ngalwana had laid the complaint because he was a Hlophe supporter was unfounded.
The ruling noted that it was common cause that the advocate had represented Hlophe in cases involving the judge president before the Judicial Services Commission and in court between 2008 and 2011.
The JCC ruled Justice Kriegler should retract remarks he made on TimesLive. It, however, dismissed complaints Ngalwana made about other articles published in the other publications.
Yesterday, Ngalwana told the Pretoria News that there was no clarity on the way forward since neither retraction nor an appeal had been made by Justice Kriegler. “Judge Kriegler has since not retracted his remarks. He announced that he would appeal, but the JCC says it hasn’t received any appeal from him or his lawyers.
“I certainly haven’t received any. The JCC said it would send me his appeal if they receive it. Nothing still. The next step is to lodge another complaint of gross misconduct (against Justice Kriegler) for being in contempt of the JCC ruling,” said Ngalwana.
Judiciary watchdog organisation Judges Matter said they were informed that Justice Kriegler would appeal the ruling, therefore suspending “his obligation to apologise” for his remarks.
“As we understand it, Judge Kriegler indicated that he would appeal the JCC’s decision. I’m not sure if he has in fact done so but if he has then the obligation to apologise is suspended for the time being,” said Judges Matter researcher Mbekezeli Benjamin.
“Judges Matter’s position is that judges must comply with all lawful orders of courts and other tribunals but in this case, there is a plausible reason why Justice Kriegler hasn’t yet," he added.
By the time of publication, the JCC had not responded to questions emailed to their office. Attempts to obtain Justice Kriegler's contact details from legal practitioners proved fruitless due to fear of litigation; they would provide his details only if they received his express permission to share them with the newspaper.
Pretoria News