Johannesburg - The Judicial Conduct Tribunal probing a complaint of racism against Judge Nkola Motata will sit on Saturday to consider preliminary issues, the tribunal said Friday.
Secretariat member Sello Chiloane said the meeting would deal with Motata's concern that the probe should not proceed while there was a pending legal challenge to legislation relating to the tribunal.
This involved a section of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) Act empowering the tribunal's president from appointing a National Prosecuting Authority official to collect evidence on the tribunal's behalf.
The tribunal is to probe Motata's conduct following a car accident in January 2007, after complaints from AfriForum and advocate GC Pretorius SC.
Motata was found guilty of drunk driving in 2009, two years after crashing his car into the wall of businessman Richard Baird's Johannesburg property.
He allegedly said, while drunk: “No boer is going to undermine me; this used to be the white man's land but it isn't anymore.”
He also allegedly told a metro policeman who tried to calm him down not to support a white man.
Motata later went to the High Court in Pretoria to try and stop the JSC from convening a tribunal to probe the complaint about his remarks.
Motata argued there was no code of conduct applicable to judges in the JSC Act relating to misconduct.
Sapa