Mantashe defends judges remark

2008-07-16 18:02

Cape Town - ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe on Wednesday defended his criticism of the way the Constitutional Court handled its complaint against Cape Judge President John Hlophe.

Addressing a meeting of asset managers, he referred to media reports of his statement in this regard as "the famous 'counter-revolutionary' judiciary misquotation".

Mantashe said the issue was not what had been said. Rather, it was about "why commenting on this issue and highlighting the not-so-obvious about our respected judges".

It was necessary to reaffirm the point he was making, he said.

"It cannot be acceptable for the honourable judges, who are presiding over the cases of (ANC President) Jacob Zuma, even if it was not Jacob Zuma (but someone else), it will never be acceptable to actually create a hullabaloo in dealing with a supposedly delinquent judge.

"And drag the issue of cases that you are expected to pronounce on into a public debate. I'm insisting on that.

"I'm saying, a judge found to maybe (have) behaved in a delinquent way, the judges must drag that man to the right carpet in the internal processes and deal with that issue without creating a hullabaloo about President Jacob Zuma, and so forth, and so forth.

"Because, when the time arrives in the future, and they make a pronouncement on the cases that they are presiding over, that flaw will look larger than the actual pronouncement on the cases," Mantashe said.

- SAPA