Apologise for your pro-Israel comments, Mogoeng ordered
● Chief justice breached code of conduct by being involved in political controversy, Judicial Conduct Committee finds
Chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has been ordered to apologise for, and retract, pro-Israel comments he made during a webinar in June.
The Judicial Conduct Committee found Mogoeng guilty and ordered him to apologise unconditionally for becoming involved in political controversy through his utterances in the online seminar hosted by The Jerusalem Post on June 23.
Africa 4 Palestine, a proPalestine South African organisation, laid a complaint about Mogoeng’s comments.
The committee also ordered Mogoeng to unreservedly retract and withdraw a statement he uttered after a public outcry over his initial comments.
He said he stood by his comments and that he would not apologise or retract them —“even if 50-million people were to march every day for 10 years for me to do so, I would not apologise”.
“If I perish, I perish,” he said. The Sunday Times reported in June that, in his webinar comments, Mogoeng seemed to base his pro-Israel stance on passages from the Bible.
Mogoeng participated in a webinar entitled Two Chiefs, One Mission: Confronting Apartheid of the Heart with the chief rabbi of SA, Rabbi Warren Goldstein, hosted by The Jerusalem Post.
The moderator, the editorin-chief of the newspaper, Yakoov Katz, asked Mogoeng about his love for the Jewish people, for Israel, for the state of Israel and about his thoughts on the tense diplomatic relations between SA and Israel.
In a long-winded response, Mogoeng began by acknowledging the policy direction taken by SA was binding on him as any other law would be.
“So, whatever I have to say should not be misunderstood as an attempt to say the policy direction taken by my country in terms of their constitutional responsibilities is not binding on me.
“But just as a citizen, any citizen is entitled to criticise the laws and the policies of SA or even suggest that changes are necessary, and that’s where I come from,” he said.
Mogoeng said he was under an obligation as a Christian to love Israel and to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, which actually meant the peace of Israel.
An NGO, Africa 4 Palestine, the SA Boycott Disinvestments and Sanctions Coalition (SA BDS Coalition) and a Durbanbased Women’s Cultural Group (WCG) complained separately to the Judicial Service Commission about Mogoeng’s comments in July.
In the main, their complaints were that Mogoeng committed wilful or grossly negligent breaches of the Code of Judicial Conduct, in that he had become involved in political controversy or activity which is in breach of the code.
The other complaint was that he involved himself in extrajudicial activities which were incompatible with the confidence in and the impartiality of judges and that he failed to recuse himself from a pending case where there had arisen a reasonable suspicion of bias against one of the parties.
The latter complaint was dismissed by the committee.
The Judicial Conduct Committee said Mogoeng had to apologise within the next 10 days at a meeting of serving justices of the Constitutional Court, and release a copy of the apology under his signature to the office of the chief justice and the media.
While the committee dismissed a complaint that Mogoeng should have recused himself from the webinar, it found that Mogoeng became involved in political controversy or activity, and therefore breached the code of conduct.
The committee said: “The South African judiciary is and must remain one which does not unduly involve itself in political controversy.
“It does not use or lend the prestige of judicial office to advance any private interests, whether of its individual members or others.” The committee said Mogoeng’s apology should read:
“Apology and Retraction “I, Mogoeng Mogoeng, Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa, hereby apologise unconditionally for becoming involved in political controversy through my utterances in the online seminar (webinar) hosted by The Jerusalem Post on 23 June 2020, in which I participated.
“I further hereby unreservedly retract and withdraw the statement which I uttered subsequent thereto.” Or other words to the same effect.
It was not quite the hole-inone he was aiming for, but what budding golfer Matthew Bonnesse did get at the 8th green was a “flipping thick puff adder”.
The nine-handicapper was out with his regular four-ball on Wednesday and had just chipped in for a birdie on the 8th at the Humewood Golf Course, when he noticed one of the course staff photographing something on the side of the green.
“It was a flipping thick puff adder slithering along being followed by these two hadedas.
“I was worried that the snake was going to hurt the birds but it seems he was full because he didn’t show any interest in them.
“They stalked along beside him and one of them even tried to peck him, but eventually they just ushered him into the bush on the other side of the green.”
Bonnesse, 30, a human movement science lecturer at Nelson Mandela University, said he was a regular at the Humewood Golf Course but Wednesday’s run-in was a first.
“I’ve probably played 100 rounds here and I’ve never seen a snake before.
“This is one of the top 10 courses in SA and one of the top 100 in the world, so I definitely won’t stop playing here.”
He said he had always known there were snakes in the golf course bush.
“But now I know for sure. “I’ve told my group, that’s it — if I go into the rough that’s goodbye to my ball, I’m not going looking for it.
“It’s definitely extra encouragement to stick to the fairways,” he said, laughing.
Gqeberha snake expert Mark Marshall said puff adder activity had in fact been stagnant this past summer.
“In December 2019, I dealt with 79 call-outs where puff adders were causing problems or being seen to be causing problems,” he said.
“This December, the number dropped to 24.
“It could be related to the lack of rain, which means less grass cover and germination of seeds and therefore less rodents which they prey on.”