The EFF is dragging acting chief justice Raymond Zondo to the Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) as it accuses him of withholding information of his meetings with former president Jacob Zuma.
“The EFF will file a complaint against Zondo with the JSC [Judicial Service Commission] for referral to the Judicial Conduct Committee, so that he is held accountable,” the EFF said on Saturday.
This comes as the JSC was expected to meet on Saturday and deliberate on the four candidates it interviewed for the position of chief justice, including Zondo.
Zondo, Constitutional Court justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) president Mandisa Maya and Gauteng High Court president Danstan Mlambo are currently vying for the top judicial post and President Cyril Ramaphosa will select his preferred candidate after the recommendations of the JSC.
On Friday, JSC commissioner and EFF leader Julius Malema grilled Zondo over his meetings with Zuma more than 10 years ago as he asked what they were about.
Zondo said his 2008 visit and meeting with Zuma at his Forest Town home was to discuss Malema’s utterances which he made while he was the ANC Youth League president and in which he said he was “prepared to kill for Zuma”.
Zondo said while he was a sitting judge at the time, he had felt that the controversial utterances had the potential to spark violence at the time if not addressed and that he considered it appropriate “as a citizen” to ask Zuma to find ways of addressing it.
Malema however took issue with Zondo when he said he could not recollect what his two prior hotel meetings with Zuma in Durban were about.
In a statement, the party claimed that it constituted misconduct on Zondo’s part not to reveal that he had “met one of the most influential politicians who later appointed him as both a ConCourt judge and head of the judicial commission into state capture”.
“This amounts to an unethical conduct of catastrophic proportions especially because he has sat in so many cases in which the EFF and CIC Malema were at loggerheads with Zuma and his ANC government,” the EFF said.
The party said this revealed that Zondo had enjoyed friendship with Zuma despite his denial of Zuma’s claim that they were friends.
“It is a fact that only friends can meet privately, in the comfort of their homes to discuss other politicians’ utterances. No other judge, regardless of how worried about politicians’ public utterances, could ever reach out in such a cosy manner as Zondo did with Zuma. Zondo’s fear for the spark of violence does not absolve him,” the party said.
The EFF is understood to be opposed to Zondo’s candidacy and the party has over the years been among Zondo’s most outspoken critics as it accused him and the judiciary of having a soft spot for Ramaphosa and his administration.
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