Western Cape High Court judgeMushtak Parkerhas been found guilty of two instances of gross misconduct by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), opening the door for his possible impeachment. He was found guilty of gross misconduct by the Judicial Conduct Tribunal in July last year. The matter was sent to the JSC for a final decision, which was handed down this week and is in concurrence with the tribunal.
The one case was that he had lied to the JSC that there were no circumstances, financial or otherwise, known to him which might cause embarrassment in undertaking the office of a judge. This hinged on his failure to disclose there was a complaint that he and his partners misappropriated funds of their trust creditors while he practised as an attorney. The tribunal found his failure to disclose in his nomination questionnaire, and in the interview before the JSC, that the trust account of his law firm had had a trust deficit for a long time while he was a managing director constitutes gross misconduct on his part.
The other was that he acted dishonestly by giving two different and mutually exclusive versions about an alleged assault in his chambers by his then boss, former judge presidentJohn Hlophe, in February 2019. The first version is that he was allegedly assaulted by Hlophe in a fit of rage and the other is that Hlophe did not assault him. A complaint was lodged over this in March 2020 by 10 judges of the Western Cape division of the high court.
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Parker, in his representations, argued he was not guilty of gross misconduct. He said in the Hlophe incident, he misstated the facts and sought to correct the mistake once he realised it. Regarding the complaint concerning the 20 shortfalls in his law firm’s trust account, he said by the time he became aware of the shortfalls, he was a judge.
Once he became aware he sought to pay back the missing money. He told the tribunal he is suffering from a brain tumour and a heart condition and is undergoing radiation therapy. He is 71 years old and married with adult children.
He said his wife used to be a nurse but left her job to take care of him and is financially dependent on him. Parker submitted there is no basis to impeach him and if he is not impeached, he will take early retirement on account of ill health. The JSC found Parker’s contradictory versions of what happened in his chambers between himself and Hlophe were deliberate and amount to gross misconduct.
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