ONCE revered as the “darling of the judiciary”, former Judge President of the Western Cape High Court division, Professor John Hlophe, recently impeached, has revealed that his problems began when he ran out of favour after he revealed that there were deep-rooted patterns of racism in the judiciary.
Judge Hlophe was impeached last week. The National Assembly voted in favour of his impeachment, with only 27 members of parliament against the 305 parliamentarians which included the ANC and the DA. The vote sealed Hlophe’s fate.
This was after the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) found Hlophe guilty of gross misconduct, dating back to 2008 when he was accused of attempts to improperly influence Constitutional Court justices Bess Nkabinde and Chris Jafta to decide matters in favour of particular litigants.
Section 177 of the Constitution provides for a judge to be removed from office only if the JSC finds that the judge suffers from incapacity, is grossly incompetent, or is guilty of gross misconduct.
Despite all the allegations levelled against Judge Hlophe that ultimately led to his demise, he maintained, throughout various processes, that he was innocent.
Asked about the nature of the complaint against him, Judge Hlophe in an Interview on The Insight Factor which aired in 2020, stated that the turning point of his career was in 2004 when he wrote a “racism report” exposing the racism within the legal profession.
“The reason why everybody sees me as the naughty boy of the judiciary is because that is all the public is told every day.
“Before 2004 I was a darling of the legal profession, I was scholarly, writing beautiful judgements… I was loved by everybody. Even Mogoeng Mogoeng said to me that I was tipped to be the Chief Justice before him… he knows that.
“In 2004 I authored a report on racism based on my experience, remember I was appointed judge in 1995. So it took me time to experience different things and to look around, share common experiences with fellow black judges. Look at what is happening in the profession… I decided to address it because at the time I was now appointed Judge President on May 1, 2000.
“I said I am a judge president and I am not prepared to continue presiding over this racism… I filed a report detailing various instances of racism that I and the various judges experienced in the profession.
“What they would do for instance is, allocate a case to a black judge, it’s urgent… they don’t like it, suddenly they find a way and say no we have settled and we are going to postpone… how do you postpone a matter that is urgent. But if I similarly allocate an urgent matter to a white colleague they rush to court, they get the results.”
Hlophe said after he authored the report, in which he said he had provoked various people, he had no peace and this was the reason many people started directing insults and all sorts of allegations against him.
“It all started with the racism report where I mentioned big names of individuals… and to this day I never had peace. There were attempts to even sue me, there were attempts to insult me year in year out. Remember in 2008 the racism report had already been filed at least four yeas prior to the complaint.
“But before that I was adored, I was revered, I was the darling of the profession. I used to do so much. I would train judges, I would be called to investigate this and that… all of that now is the thing of the past. I am now publicly insulted and nullified and treated like a corrupt person or an illegitimate child of the family. It all started when I told the truth about the legal profession.
“One of the things that I raised in my report was skewed briefing patterns. We live in the country where the economy is still in the hands of the very few South Africans, and its largely white South Africans and that is the fact.
“So I also said in my racism report, lawyers of today are judges of tomorrow so if the briefing patterns are skewed inevitably white lawyers get better claim, because they get quality work from good quality law firms. Those good quality law firms get that work from white clients.”
Hlophe stated in his report that “due to the skewed briefing patterns”, black lawyers risked being relegated while their white counterparts stood a better chance because they were enabled by their fellow whites who were in control of the economy and therefore decided who received work.
Hlophe said there was racism in the country but some people did not believe that the same racism also existed in the legal profession.
Some judges attempted to persuade him to withdraw the racism report, but, he said, he refused to withdraw it because he was convinced it was valid.