Mtshepana Tembe, News24 User
I am writing to air my views regarding a standoff between the Constitutional Court Judges and Judge John Hlophe, and the subsequent criticism of the Constitutional Court judges by individual leaders of the African National Congress.
The Constitutional Court judges are not semi-gods but humans like all of us. They are not, and should not be immune from criticism from members of the public. As far as I know the ANC has not adopted any formal position that aim to undermine our judiciary in general and the Constitutional Court in particular.
It must be noted however that individual leader of the ANC like any member of the public have a constitutional right to express his or her opinion against or in favour of certain positions and institutions.
It is therefore wrong, misleading and mischievous for the media and opposition parties like the Democratic Alliance to construe the expression of different opinion regarding certain position as an attack on the judiciary.
If the ANC was interfering with the judiciary, Tony Yengeni could not have been sentenced for his alleged role in the Arms Deal. If the ANC was interfering with the judiciary we could not have heard anything about the Travelgate scandal which implicated many ANC MPs.
Moreover, if the ANC was interfering with the judiciary the ANC President, Jacob Zuma would not be facing the number of charges he is facing for his alleged role in the arms deal. If the ANC was interfering with the judiciary, Minister Trevor Manuel couldn't be fighting court battles with the so-called Arms Deal activist.
Vibrant democracy
The fact that some leaders of the ANC have come out strongly against certain government institutions is an indication of a vibrant nature of our democracy. This shows that our three tiers of government are functioning independent of each other and there is no interference from the ruling party.
More than anything else, the ANC is a political organisation which functions separately from the government. It has a life of its own outside the government.
The manner in which the Constitutional Court judges handled their complaint against Judge Hlophe leaves a lot to be desired to say less. They breached every JSC rule that governs the laying of complaints against judicial officers with the sole intention to embarrass and vilify one of the most senior black judges.
This was done despite the presence of the Chief Justice Pius Langa, the Chairperson of the Judicial Service Commission. As the ordinary members of the public we expect the actions of the Chief Justice to be impeccable. As a Chairperson of the JSC we expect the Chief Justice to respect the institution he serves and to act in a manner that does not undermine the integrity of our judiciary. We expect him to be well versed about the procedures governing the JSC.
By issuing a media statement that they have laid a complaint against Judge Hlophe while in fact there was no such complaint, the Constitutional Court undermined the very same constitutional integrity that they suppose to protect. Soon after that the two judges whom Judge Hlophe allegedly tried to improperly influence issued their statement through their Counsel that they didn't complain and were not intending to lay any complaint.
This can only lead to the conclusion that the two judges didn't consider their collegial chat with Judge Hlophe as improper.
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Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.