Cape Town - Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe is taking on Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng after sensational damaging claims emerged that he plotted to kill his deputy Judge Patricia Goliath.
Hlophe’s lawyer Barnabas Xulu said his client believes the country’s top judicial officer has been influenced by the reports of “fake" allegations of an assassination plot against Goliath.
Judges Hlophe and Goliath have been involved in a public spat that has been referred to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Hlophe has even lodged a complaint of gross judicial misconduct against Mogoeng, alleging that he handled Goliath’s complaint in a biased manner and the fact that he (Mogoeng) adjudicated a complaint in which he was potentially a witness to the allegations.
Xulu said Hlophe “requires a proper investigation into how these complaints have been adjudicated”.
Hlophe reacted angrily to claims that he plotted to kill Goliath and described the allegations as “defamatory, untruthful, malicious and deliberate lies”.
Xulu said his client was unaware that such despicable, heinous and false allegations had been made and leaked to the media and that they were aimed at manufacturing outrage by perpetrating malignant lies about him.
The sensational claims that Hlophe plotted to assassinate Goliath are contained in a Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) report that has been brought to the attention of Mogoeng and Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola.
In the report, the JICS states that a prisoner in KwaZulu-Natal alerted authorities of the alleged plot.
”Judge President (Hlophe) has never been involved in any actions that could even remotely justify the defamatory and unfortunate insinuations in the report of the JICS. He has never met or spoken to any of the persons referred to in the report, either in person or by any proxy anywhere,” Xulu said.
He continued: “Simply put, the allegations that Judge President Hlophe is involved in any criminal activities, including the hiring of assassins to kill the Deputy Judge President are false”.
Xulu accused any person publishing such allegations of being involved in malicious acts of defamation with the intention to undermine Judge Hlophe and ultimately judicial independence and the integrity of the judiciary.
Political Bureau