The Umkhonto weSizwe Party Youth League (MKPYL) has slammed the application by AfriForum seeking direct access to the Constitutional Court on an urgent basis, calling it “baseless”.
This comes after impeached judge of the Western Cape High Court, John Hlophe, was elected to serve on the National Assembly’s Judicial Service Commission (JSC) earlier this month.
Judge Hlophe was impeached after the Judicial Conduct Tribunal found him guilty of attempting to sway the outcome of former president Jacob Zuma's corruption trial back in 2008.
It was the JSC that found him guilty of gross misconduct in August 2021 and recommended impeachment, which took place in Parliament last year.
AfriForum, on the other hand, wants Hlophe removed from the JSC after his election to the legal body by the House of Assembly recently.
According to MKPYL spokesperson Ntateko Mkhabela, it is noteworthy to mention that the National Assembly, in designating Hlophe to the JSC, acted within its rules and constitutional mandate, and the contention that such an appointment was ‘’irrational, unlawful, unreasonable, invalid and thus inconsistent with the constitution’’ cannot be said to be holding any water in an open and democratic society.
“We note in that such an application by AfriForum is baseless, vexatious and irrational and is a desperate attempt to throw the spanner in the grinding wheels of justice and more particularly neo-liberal quartet perpetuation of animosity and pure jealousy in the person of Dr John Hlophe.
“The AfriForum mandate from its masters is to destabilise and weaken the momentum of the MK Party in Parliament as the official opposition party,” said Mkhabela.
Moreover, Mkhabela said the only reasonable inference to be drawn and consistent with the founding affidavit by AfriForum through Kallie Kriel, is one of seeking and persuading the Constitutional Court to dictate to the National Assembly how to exercise its own constitutional mandate in terms of section (3) and (4), and thus the National Assembly could not be said to have acted in bad faith in the appointment of Hlophe.
The contention by AfriForum in its application is that the National Assembly failed to provide mechanisms, or make rules, to maintain oversight over the JSC in terms of section 55(2)(b)(ii) of the Constitution, and thus constituting a violation of this section is invalid, could never be attributed to Hlophe nor the MKP, said Mkhabela.
Parliament adopted the resolution confirming the JSC findings in terms of section 177 of the Constitution of gross misconduct against Hlophe, and President Cyril Ramaphosa, acting on the instructions from his neo-colonial masters, confirmed Parliament’s decision, and thus endorsed the impeachment of Hlophe, it said.
AfriForum was malicious in its application to the apex court and clearly this is an abuse of the court as their matter cannot be said to be urgent and rationally founded, said Mkhabela.
‘’As the MKPYL, we submit that the AfriForum has got nothing to do with how the JSC conducts its own day-to-day business and could never be the voice of the aspirant judges who are to be interviewed for the judicial office by the JSC, including Hlophe.
‘’It is interesting to note that AfriForum refers its application to the previous decided cases where findings where made against the JSC in how it conducted its business,’’ Mkhabela said.
IOL