Judge’s ruling a boon for her DA politician cousin

ACTING Western Cape High Court Judge Pearl Andrews could be in hot water after making a ruling this week which aided a senior DA politician who is her cousin.

Andrews this week ruled that a motion of no confidence in Beaufort West’s DA mayor Japie van der Linde and speaker Euna Wentzel was illegal, and thus their removal was illegal, thus propelling the DA back into power in the Karoo municipality.

But ANC councillor Truman Prince said he would lodge a complaint with the Judicial Services Commission (JSC), which oversees judges, because Judge Andrews had not recused herself from the matter even though her cousin Daylin Mitchell is the DA’s constituency head for Beaufort West and Central Karoo.

In February the DA was ousted after its coalition partner, the Karoo Development Forum, chose to enter into a coalition with the ANC. But after the motion of no confidence passed the DA approached the courts arguing that proper procedure had not been followed in their removal.

On Tuesday after Andrews made a ruling, the ANC said it had accepted the judgment.

But yesterday Prince said the ANC would write a letter to the JSC and pose a question in the Western Cape legislature over the conflict of interest.

“I know that if you are conflicted, if the outcome benefits you then you have to recuse yourself. She (Judge Andrews) has ‘skyrocketed’ him (Mitchell) in the political domain; she should have recused herself.

“It’s problematic,” said Prince.

The DA won their appeal against the council decision on a technicality which states that a motion of no confidence has to be tabled at least six days before a council meeting; in the case of the Beaufort West council it was five days.

Through the DA’s provincial media team, Mitchell would only confirm that Judge Andrews was a relative, refusing to take any other questions.

Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe did not respond to text messages and calls left on his cellphone.

But the secretary of the Judicial Services Commission, Sello Chiloane, said Judge Andrews should have recused herself over the conflict of interest.

“The counsel… when they know that there’s a conflict of interest they would apply for the recusal of the judge. The judge will consider and make a decision to recuse or not to recuse themselves from the matter.

“It has to be a substantive application which makes sense in law, otherwise everyone would be asking judges to recuse themselves,” said Chiloane.