By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The National Assembly (NA) will vote on whether the two judges, John Hlophe and Nkola Motata should be removed on 21 February after the budget speech.
This is despite Hlophe, serving Parliament with a legal challenge on the process it followed to proceed with the vote.
Both judges were found guilty of gross misconduct by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) in two separate matters dating back more than a decade.
Hlope was found guilty of gross misconduct for trying to influence judges of the Constitutional Court over cases involving former president Jacob Zuma.
Motata was found guilty of drunk driving after he crashed his luxury vehicle on a boundary wall of a house in Johannesburg in 2007.
Motata, who retired in 2017, was initially fined R1 million by the Judicial Service Commission, but Freedom Under Law took the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal because it believed he committed gross misconduct.
This impeachment vote has already been delayed by a month.
National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said despite February 21 being the day of the Budget, members of the National Assembly will meet after Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has delivered his speech to vote on the removal of judges.
“We will have manual voting as has been the case, particularly, because this is going to require a majority vote, said Mapisa-Nqakula.”
Parliamentary legal advisor, Charmaine van der Merwe, has confirmed that Hlophe planned to challenge the process.
“From the court papers, there’s no indication that the process in Parliament must be halted.”
Section 177 of the constitution provides for a judge to be removed from office only if the JSC finds the justice suffers from an incapacity, is grossly incompetent or guilty of gross misconduct. The National Assembly would then call for the judge to be removed by a resolution with a supporting vote required of at least two-thirds of its members.
Thereafter, the president would remove the justice from office upon adoption of a resolution by parliament calling for such.