The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to oppose Freedom Under Law\’s court challenge to its dismissal of the dispute between Constitutional Court judges and Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe.

The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has announced that it will oppose Freedom Under Law\’s court challenge to its dismissal of the dispute between Constitutional Court judges and Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe. \”We will oppose [the application],\” JSC spokesperson Marumo Moerane SC told reporters in Cape Town yesterday. He said the JSC had decided to brief Vincent Maleka SC of the Johannesburg Bar and three additional counsel to represent it in the case. Freedom Under Law has asked the North Gauteng High Court to set aside the JSC decision to abandon a formal inquiry into a complaint by the judges of the Constitutional Court that Judge Hlophe had sought to influence its judgment related to the now abandoned corruption case against ANC leader Jacob Zuma and a French arms dealer. This was a year before Mr Zuma became president of South Africa. Former Constitutional Court Judge Johann Kriegler, speaking for Freedom Under Law, has said that conflicting allegations by Judge Hlophe and by judges of the highest court in the land should have been resolved by a full inquiry with cross-examination and that “the JSC’s failure to carry out its constitutionally mandated duty had caused great harm to the administration of justice”. The complaint against Judge Hlophe by the nation\’s top judges remained unresolved for more than a year before a reconstituted JSC decided in August not to probe it further.