TRIAL JUDGE MAUMELA DID NOT DO ANY ‘HEAVY LIFTING’

JUDGE President Dunstan Mlambo has insisted that between 2012 and 2021, Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela had a history of outstanding judgments despite not doing much of the “heavy lifting” when compared with other judges.

Judge Mlambo was testifying during the first sitting of the Judicial Conduct Tribunal Hearing for Judge Maumela held in Rosebank, Johannesburg, yesterday.

In June 2023, Judge Maumela and Judge Nomonde Mngqibisa-Thusi were suspended by President Cyril Ramaphosa for failing to deliver numerous reserved judgments within a reasonable time.

The Judicial Service Commission recommended that both judges be suspended and a judicial conduct tribunal established to consider complaints that they had failed to deliver numerous reserved judgments on time.

In taking the stand, Judge Mlambo told the hearing that during this time Judge Maumela was predominantly allocated to criminal trials; however, he was never allocated special motions, which were the heaviest to deal with.

In fact, he told the hearing that at the very best Judge Maumela was only allocated two opposed motions a year as opposed to other judges who had to deal with two each term.

He said this followed a similar pattern with urgent court matters as Judge Maumela rarely had a huge caseload to deal with.

“My view sitting here is that he actually had a very accommodative allocation of cases. I can find no justifiable reason why some of those judgments would have been referred to, some even up to four years or so. Especially when you factor in that we have recess periods, meant for judges to catch up on outstanding work.”

When asked if there were any occasions where Judge Maumela explained the delays or sought an indulgence to make arrangements for judgments to be delivered at a later date, he insisted Judge Maumela never came to alert him to any problems.

He further detailed an instance dating back to when Judge Maumela was stationed at the Thohoyandou High Court and still battled with submitting judgments on time.

“I can tell the commission I was shocked when I woke up one day and received a number of complaints from parties demanding judgments and he was doing duty in the Thohoyandou High Court. I tried getting hold of him. I would send emails, or try to call him but he would not come back to me.

“When I eventually met him in Pretoria through the assistance of the senior judge there at the time, there were 28 judgments outstanding and he said to me his laptop had crashed. I was surprised to say but if your laptop crashes that does not mean you can sit back and do nothing.”

“It was only when these judgments accumulated that I decided to be bold and refer a complaint myself,” he said.

The tribunal will proceed up until March 20.