Eastern Cape judge-president Selby Mbenenge is facing an investigation by the Judicial Conduct Committee after claims of sexual harassment levelled against him by a judge’s clerk based in the Makhanda high court.
On Thursday, Mbenenge issued a “desist” demand through an East London firm of attorneys against the Sunday Times after he was approached for his side of the story.
Mbenenge’s attorney, Simphiwe Mbabane, said “the allegations that you want to publish are of a very serious and very scandalous nature; they are untrue and cannot be reversed`’.
The effect of publication would “cause irreparable harm to our client’s good name, reputation, and dignity”.
“We demand that you desist from disseminating or publishing any defamatory article against our client.”
We were given sexual harassment workshops out of the blue. We were always wondering where that came from
— Eastern Cape high court staff member
The office of the chief justice (OCJ) did not respond to a request on Wednesday morning for confirmation of the complaint against Mbenenge, with spokesperson Lusanda Ntuli saying she was waiting for her bosses to approve a response. The complaint was made in December.
But in the letter of demand, Mbabane wrote: “The matter is still under investigation by the Judicial Conduct Committee,” the Judicial Service Commission subcommittee which ordinarily deals with complaints against judges.
“Our client has requested to be furnished with further particulars that will enable him to better comprehend the complaint against him.
“The JCC has yet to decide on the veracity of the allegations, which shall only be done once our client has placed his version and made representations before the JCC — a step that has not yet been taken,” the attorney wrote. “The matter is still the subject of investigations which are at infancy stage. It would therefore be irresponsible and malicious ... to publish an article that will impugn our client’s reputation without verifying whether there is substance to the complaint or not.”
Mbabane wrote that, given Mbenenge’s position as head of the judiciary in the province, the preservation of his “good name is of utmost importance, not only to our client but also to the integrity of the judiciary as a whole”.
The complaint was submitted to the OCJ’s Midrand head office by Andiswa Mengo and concerns a series of face-to-face and electronic exchanges between the complainant and Mbenenge during 2021 and 2022.
Mengo is a judge’s clerk allocated to Makhanda high court judge Avinash Govindjee, and is highly spoken of within court circles for her professionalism and work ethic.
She initially complained to OCJ officials in the Eastern Cape, who unsuccessfully tried to mediate a discussion between her and Mbenenge, with three other judges bearing witness to the interaction.
This suggested meeting fell apart when one of the judges raised a concern that any formal complaint should be dealt with by the judiciary's regulated processes.
On Saturday and Sunday, December 3 and 4 2022, Mengo’s unhappiness over her interactions with the judge-president exploded on her WhatsApp social media status, as she posted screenshots of some of the alleged exchanges in 2021 and 2022 between herself and Mbenenge, interspersed with her commentary.
Early in February, Mengo was spirited out of the Eastern Cape for her own safety after receiving an anonymous cellphone call death threat. She was redeployed to an unspecified position in the office of the superintendent-general in the OCJ’s Midrand offices.
The threat was reported to the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation (the Hawks) in East London. Spokesperson Capt Yolisa Mgolodela did not respond to a request for information on the status of investigation of the threat.
In 2021, Eastern Cape high court staff were warned by the OCJ’s provincial head of court operations Denim Kroqwana that sexual harassment involving court officials was rife.
One staffer, who spoke at the time on condition of anonymity, said Kroqwana circulated an internal review document which listed grievances formally raised by OCJ officials in the province.
At the top of the list was sexual harassment, with complaints about officials insulting each other and arriving at work drunk being the second and third most frequently raised grievances.
“We were given sexual harassment workshops out of the blue. We were always wondering where that came from, because it just came out of nowhere and sexual harassment was just shoved down our throats for four weeks,” the official said.
Then OCJ spokesperson Nathi Mncube said at the time that it was unfair to single out Kroqwana’s report on sexual harassment from “the other matters he reported on”, including risk management and audit issues, and various workplace misconduct cases.
Mncube said the sexual harassment workshops were part of a suite of training programmes conducted by the OCJ for staff.
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