John Hlophe
| Yahya John Hlophe | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1 January 1959 Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
Yahya John Mandlakayise Hlophe (born 1 January 1959 in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal) is Judge President of the Western Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa.
Born in Stanger, KwaZulu-Natal, he was educated at the University of Natal; the University of Fort Hare and Cambridge University. Hlophe taught law at the University of Transkei, South Africa, before being appointed in 1995, aged 36, to sit as the first black judge in the High Court in Cape Town. He was the first full-time academic to be appointed as a High Court Judge. He was appointed to head the court in 2000.
Hlophe became the subject of allegations of misconduct on a number of matters during 2005-2006, which were referred for investigation by the Judicial Service Commission. The JSC considered the following four complaints: Firstly, that Hlophe had accepted payments from the Oasis Group without statutorily required Ministerial consent; secondly that he had improperly granted permission, while in receipt of such payments, for Oasis to sue Judge Desai for defamation; thirdly that he had subjected a legal practitioner to a racist insult; and finally that he had made disparaging remarks to counsel about a fellow judge to whom the Judge President had allocated a contentious case.
In October 2007, in a divided vote, the Commission decided by an undisclosed majority that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a public enquiry into the allegations.
The decision was the subject of controversy and was criticised by, amongst others, former Constitutional and Appeal Court Judge Johann Kriegler, whose criticism was published in the Sunday Times, a widely read, nationally circulated newspaper.
On 9 October 2007, nine senior members of the Cape Bar Council wrote to the Cape Town- based Cape Times newspaper in support of former constitutional and appeals court judge Johann Kriegler's comment at the weekend that Hlophe was "unfit for the Bench".
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