Parliament’s Ethics Committee wants Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema to apologise to Gauteng High Court Judge Elias Matojane as well as to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for using the JSC to further his own interests.
The committee found Malema guilty of breaching the Members of Parliament Code of Conduct for his line of questioning of Judge Matojane who was being interviewed by the JSC for a vacancy at the Supreme Court of Appeal earlier this year.
This follows three complaints against the EFF leader by the Council for the Advancement of the Constitution’s Lawson Naidoo. The first complaint related to Malema’s stinging rebuke of the Zondo Commission during a media conference.
The second, was over Malema’s claim, that Judge Dhaya Pillay was a political activist aligned to a faction within the African National Congress.
Pillay was being interviewed by the JSC for a vacancy in the Constitutional Court. However, the Ethics Committee has cleared Malema of any wrong doing in relation to these two complaints.
It however found him guilty of the way he questioned Judge Matojane over his decision to award half a million rand damages to former finance Minister Trevor Manuel for defamation, although this quantum was later overturned by the SCA.
The Ethics Committee stressed in its ruling that Malema serves on the JSC to further the interest of the public – and not his own.
