By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Eastern Cape High Court secretary Andiswa Mengo told the Judicial Conduct Tribunal probing allegations that Judge President Selby Mbenenge sexually harassed her, that he sent her sexually explicit emojis – a guava and a banana – and a picture of a penis.
She was in East London at the time, and recalled messaging Mbenenge that he was making her feel “shy” after he sent her another explicit image, this time of a couple engaged in a sexual act.
When Mbenenge asked her to explain why, she replied that she would prefer to tell him the reason when she was back in Grahamstown and they could talk face to face.
To this, Mengo said, Mbenenge responded by asking if they “could be intimate” upon her return.
She texted back: “Face each other, not intimacy”.
Mengo said when Mbenenge persisted she replied that this was impossible, and also sent him a verse from the book of Psalms.
She told the tribunal, headed by former Gauteng judge president Bernard Ngoepe, that Mbenenge seemed undeterred and sent her a message reading: “What if we melted, it is not impossible,” followed by a sticker of a man fanning his face.
Mengo said she reiterated: “It is impossible”.
She said she eventually ended the conversation by texting “bye”, but more messages from Mbenenge followed which he subsequently deleted. The record showed that she responded to one of the messages by exclaiming “Jesus”.
When evidence leader Salome Scheepers asked what prompted her to respond in this manner, Mengo became emotional before saying: “One of them was of a private part … It was a male private part.”
She told the tribunal that Mbenenge later replied to this image with a message suggesting she send him a picture of her genitalia.
“I was in a position now not even knowing how to respond to him anymore as my boss,” she continued.
Mbenenge is the first judge to risk impeachment for sexual misconduct. He has denied sending the offending images, and told a judicial conduct committee of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) that what transpired between him and the complainant was consensual, qualifying their exchanges as flirtatious and playful.
If his advances were not unwanted, an impeachable charge cannot be sustained.
Over four days of public testimony, the tribunal has traversed a number of exchanges where Mengo sent ambiguous responses to overtly sexual messages from the senior judge.
Although she has maintained that these must be read as literal and devoid of innuendo, Ngoepe has noted that her responses were not clear to him and would be interrogated further in the course of the inquiry.