Ramaphosa waits for panel’s final report
THE panel looking into the nomination of the next chief justice will submit its final report directly to President Cyril Ramaphosa amid a call by former head of intelligence Arthur Fraser to the panel to disqualify Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo from the race.
Fraser’s nine-page letter objecting to Justice Zondo’s nomination has been made public.
Justice Zondo is among a group of lawyers who were nominated by various law firms including community organisations to be the next chief justice following the end of Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s tenure last week.
Ramaphosa invited new nominations earlier this month and set clear guidelines for law firms and community organisations to set out the reasons why their nominees were deemed suitable to be the next chief justice.
The deadline for objections to nominees was last Friday.
In his objection, Fraser claimed that Justice Zondo lacked the requisite judicial independence, lacked the necessary loyalty to the oath of office taken by judicial officers when they are appointed and lacked the integrity and fairness required for the office of chief justice.
He claimed that Justice Zondo, while hearing testimonies allegedly implicating him in state capture, never gave him an opportunity to react to the testimony of 10 witnesses who implicated him.
Justice Zondo “is demonstrably not a fit and proper candidate to be the face and embodiment of the values enshrined in the Constitution of South Africa”, he claimed,
Throwing more punches at Justice Zondo, Fraser said Justice Zondo’s conduct was meant to please the ruling political elite so that it could, in future, give him the green light to be the next chief justice.
“Together with Paul Pretorius SC (head of the Commission of Injuiry into state capture’s legal team and evidence leader), he deliberately permitted no less than 10 witnesses to present falsehoods about me without affording me even one opportunity to state my version before the commission or to defend myself against any of the allegations made against me.
“I have reason to believe that Justice
Zondo did this in order to endear himself with the political class so that he can secure the position of chief justice for which he is now nominated.”
Fraser made the claims against Justice Zondo, despite the deputy chief justice having made numerous requests to him and former State Security Agency (SSA) officials to sort out their differences regarding Fraser’s request for the declassification of documents to allow him to testify before the commission.
The SSA had at the time accused Fraser of having failed to take up the opportunity to have talks with them about the declassification of information.
In his objection, however, Fraser placed the blame on his failure to testify squarely on Justice Zondo.
Reacting to the latest development, presidential spokesperson Tyrone Seale said the short-listing panel had confirmed receipt of more than 500 submissions of public comment in support of and in objection to the eligible nominees.
“The panel is in the process of evaluating these comments and engaging nominees on these submissions.
“The panel will address the objections to short-listed nominees to the president,” Seale said.
According to insiders, however, members of the panel will only comment on short-listed candidates when they hand over their report to Ramaphosa.
At this stage, it is not clear whether Justice Zondo is among those shortlisted.