The break-ins we didn’t hear about

Two break-ins occurred at the Constitutional Court in recent years, both unpublicised until now, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has confirmed to the Mail & Guardian in an interview.

These came before the 2017 break-in at the office of the chief justice (OCJ) in Midrand when 15 computers were stolen from the human resources department, leading to speculation about attempts to spy on the judiciary.

The chambers of Johann van der Westhuizen, who has since retired, were broken into in December 2015 and were followed by the May 2016 break-in at Judge Edwin Cameron’s chambers. The OCJ confirmed that in both instances computer hard drives were removed from the judges’ chambers at Constitutional Hill.

When the OCJ was burgled, the OCJ said the “stolen computers contain important information about judges and officials of the OCJ and constitute a huge setback”.

Asked whether he thought the forced entries at the court may have been motivated by a political agenda, Mogoeng said the investigation had not yielded a motive. “I don’t know why there were break-ins. I mean, why didn’t they break into my chambers? I am on the same floor with Justice Cameron, so why didn’t they break into Justice [Mbuyiseli] Madlanga’s chambers? I don’t know what the reason was.”

Mogoeng and the OCJ declined to comment on whether the judges at the court may be under surveillance by intelligence operatives and on whether the court was swept for spying devices.

But Mogoeng said he was “not happy” with the “poor” security at the court and had discussed this with Cyril Ramaphosa after his appointment as president earlier this year.

Mogoeng said he had subsequently met Police Minister Bheki Cele and had pointed out the poor security at the court, including guards being armed only with batons.

“[Cele] noted the issues and there hasn’t been a response as far as I know. It may well be that there are budgetary challenges … I am disinclined to say that he is not doing anything about it because I don’t know what he is doing about it,” he said.

The OCJ confirmed that cases had, at the time, been opened at the Hillbrow police station but that both case dockets were subsequently “closed as undetected”.

Asked why the break-ins at the court had not been made public, Mogoeng said: “There are many things that we don’t announce, isn’t it? What we want, fundamentally, is to make sure that criminals are caught. That is our primary preoccupation. To make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”