Bias claimed in DA sex case
THE sexual harassment case involving senior DA leaders took another twist when the magistrate presiding over the matter recused himself over claimed biases against the alleged victim.
Thina Bambeni, an Ekurhuleni councillor, has filed protection-order applications against five members of the DA’s top brass in the city, including caucus leader Phillip de Lange and the party’s council chairperson Shadow Shabangu.
This followed alleged sexual and verbal abuse that she claimed to have been subjected to by Shabangu between September 2016 and July 2017.
Bambeni added that she had felt the DA leadership had failed to protect her from the alleged harassment.
The other three respondents in the matter were Fortune Mahano, Jacqueline Riley and Shaun le Roux.
These damning allegations have seemingly had severe political implications for the alleged victim, Bambeni, who has been removed by the DA’s national leadership from the party’s list of possible parliamentary candidates after the May elections.
On Sunday, DA Gauteng leader John Moodey confirmed to The Star that he had sent an email to the party’s federal candidates election committee to “red flag” Bambeni’s application as she was supposedly not fit and proper to make the legislative list.
Moodey cited the court action against DA leaders to motivate for Bambeni’s removal from the party’s representative consideration.
Yesterday, at the Germiston Magistrate’s Court, however, Bambeni asked the magistrate, Luis Teixeira, to recuse himself from the case as she had felt that he was biased while presiding over her protection-order application.
Bambeni believed that Teixeira was going to rule against an application that she submitted in January of a voice recording she claimed to have made of Shabangu allegedly verbally abusing her inside the courtroom.
This was new evidence that she hoped would be admitted in her efforts to prove the DA leader’s alleged continued abuse of her.
Bambeni also said she went to see Teixeira on Thursday at his Elsburg offices, where she claimed to have received a frosty reception from the presiding officer when she wanted to file another application for this court matter.
Teixeira, after listening to Bambeni’s application, as well as the opposition which was led by the respondents’ legal representative, Andrew Marais, said that, “without admitting actual bias”, he would recuse himself from the case.
The magistrate also cited the “irregular” meeting that he had with Bambeni last week in the absence of the opposing parties as a reason for his recusal.
Marais, speaking after the recusal and on behalf of the respondents, said they would be making considerations to the magistrate’s ruling before offering comment.