Staff Reporter.
The Judicial Conduct Committee has recommended that allegations made against Western Cape deputy judge president Patricia Goliath should be investigated by the Judicial Conduct Tribunal.
Western Cape judge president John Hlophe’s wife, Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe, alleged that Goliath had attempted to influence her to lay false criminal charges against Hlophe, encouraged her to divorce her husband and stop using his surname, and referred to Hlophe as an “old black man”.
While recommending the allegations be investigated, the committee dismissed a complaint by Goliath that Salie-Hlophe was improperly involved in the management of the court where she also works, enjoys preferential treatment and has made unwarranted complaints against her colleagues.
On January 15, 2020, Goliath lodged a complaint of gross misconduct against Hlophe and his wife, who is also a judge. Goliath alleged that Hlophe and his wife engaged in conduct that compromised the proper functioning and integrity of the courts.
In a scathing complaint lodged by Goliath, she described judges as being afraid of Salie-Hlophe.
“The allegations were that she had assumed ‘enormous power’ in the division, resulting in some of the judges being afraid of her and being disinclined to raise openly any issues relating to her; that she was (improperly) participating in the management of the court, the allocation of cases and appointment of acting judges; that she chose which judges she would sit with on appeals, and that her (unwarranted) complaints about certain judges to the Judge President had resulted in strained relationships between the Judge President and the judges concerned and the assault referred to in the preceding paragraph,” the complaint said.
Hlophe lodged a counter-complaint against Goliath, saying she was guilty of gross misconduct for making false allegations against him. He also accused Goliath of being a racist and of meddling in his marriage to Salie-Hlophe.
“The allegations describing her as a beneficiary of the [Judge President’s] preferential treatment (e.g. being allocated less work and taking days off work), were strongly rebuffed by both Judge Salie-Hlophe and the JP, with the JP stating that Judge Salie-Hlophe always performed her allocated work.
In July last year, the Judicial Conduct Committee recommended that Hlophe face an impeachment investigation by a Judicial Conduct Tribunal. It dismissed all counter-allegations made by Hlophe against Goliath.
Hlophe is appealing against that decision.
Judge Nambitha Dambuza was in March last year asked by the acting chair of the Judicial Conduct Committee, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo, to inquire into the complaint by Goliath against Salie-Hlophe.
However, before Nambitha was appointed, Salie-Hlophe issued a media statement on January 28, 2020.
In that statement, Salie-Hlophe remarked about what she considered an “unhealthy obsession” of Goliath with her marriage, to the extent that on some occasions, Goliath told Salie-Hlophe to stop using her marital name and warned her that if she did not “exit” the marriage, people would wonder why she was married to an “old black man”.
In her reply to the committee, Goliath denied the statements that Hlophe and his wife accused her of, particularly the racial statements and her alleged encouragement of Salie-Hlophe to divorce Hlophe.
Dambuza said in the complaint by Goliath against Hlophe, Goliath’s alleged conduct and utterances in relation to the incident at Hlophe’s home were central to Hlophe’s counterclaim against Goliath, particularly in relation to racism.
Dambuza said it was imperative that this issue be properly determined.