JOHANNESBURG - Among the new MK Party Members of Parliament set to be sworn in on Tuesday is controversial former judge president of the High Court in the Western Cape, John Hlophe.
This was during a lynchpin appeal involving former President Jacob Zuma, who now leads the MK Party and his arms deal prosecution. A mere four years later, in 1999, he was appointed deputy judge president; and a year later, in 2000, he was appointed judge president - a position he went on to hold for more than two decades.
In January 2020, his erstwhile deputy, Judge Patricia Goliath, lodged a complaint against Hlophe in which he was accused of trying to allocate"favourably disposed" judges in another case involving Zuma and even assaulting a fellow judge in his chambers, among other things. And while his impeachment rendered it moot in the end, he was also facing a tribunal over that.