Cape Town — Parliament has deferred the impeachment vote against Western Cape judge President John Hlophe, and retired Gauteng judge, Nkola Motata to next year.
Last week, the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services decided to propose the removal of Hlophe and Motata.
The National Assembly must now review the committee’s report and cast their votes on the judges’ impeachment, The Citizen reported.
The National Assembly’s programme committee decided on Thursday a special sitting will be convened in January for MPs to attend in person and vote on whether the suspended Western Cape High Court judge president and retired Gauteng judge should be impeached.
Considering that next week is the last week of parliament sittings before the December holidays, ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina proposed the matter be deferred to January due to parliament’s tight schedule and lack of a suitable venue, TimesLIVE said.
“We appreciate that the portfolio committee on justice has finalised the reports on the two judges and that is supposed to come to the assembly and the requirement for such report to be adopted is two-thirds majority,” she said.
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IFP chief whip Narend Singh said the delay was unfortunate especially as the Motata matter has been outstanding for years.
“I agree we can’t do it in the next two days or next week, but we must find the earliest opportunity to deal with those matters.”
They’ve both been found guilty of gross misconduct by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) in separate incidents dating back more than a decade, according to EWN.
A two-thirds majority vote will be required for their removal. But this poses logistical challenges for Parliament which needs to a hire a venue for all members to be present.
It will be better if we do it at the beginning of next year. We will not be able to do this before Parliament rises next week,” speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, said.
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
