The Judicial Service Commission has recommended the initiation of removal proceedings against Judge Mushtak Parker.
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- The Judicial Service Commission has recommended the initiation of removal proceedings against Judge Mushtak Parker.
- Last year, the judge was found guilty of gross misconduct.
- The JSC resolved to refer the matter to the Speaker of the National Assembly and to recommend that he be removed from office through a process of impeachment.
The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) has recommended the initiation of removal proceedings against Judge Mushtak Parker following a finding of gross misconduct.
The JSC, which sat on 13 October 2025 without members of Parliament, reviewed the report of the Judicial Conduct Tribunal – which had found Parker guilty of gross misconduct and acting dishonestly after considering the complaint lodged by ten Western Cape High Court judges and the Cape Bar Council.
It also reviewed the record and transcript of the tribunal and Parker’s written submissions to the JSC.
Despite deposing to an affidavit about an alleged assault by former Western Cape judge president John Hlophe, Parker later claimed he may have misremembered the altercation.
Hlophe’s then-deputy, Patricia Goliath, accused Hlophe of verbally abusing her and assaulting Parker in February 2019.
The tribunal found that Parker had “acted dishonestly in giving two contradictory and mutually exclusive versions about the incident” between himself and Hlophe.
“By giving these two contradictory and mutually exclusive versions, the respondent rendered himself guilty of gross misconduct,” the tribunal found.
Goliath raised Parker’s alleged assault in a gross misconduct complaint against the then-judge president in January 2020. According to Goliath, the alleged assault occurred months before Hlophe had allegedly verbally abused her.
She said Parker claimed that Hlophe had violently pushed against his upper body in an attack that caused him to fall to the ground and injure his back. Parker had dictated and deposed to a sworn affidavit about the alleged assault immediately after it happened and subsequently told at least eight judges about the altercation in the months that followed.
But, following Goliath’s complaint, he backtracked and sought to retract his accusations, saying he may have “misremembered” the incident.
READ | Judge Parker’s big gamble: Will his silence about Hlophe ‘assault’ save him from removal?
Parker was also found to have failed to declare his law firm’s trust fund misappropriation when he applied to be a judge.
In a statement on Thursday evening, the JSC said it found Parker’s conduct constituted gross misconduct.
The JSC resolved to refer the matter to the Speaker of the National Assembly and to recommend that he be removed from office through a process of impeachment, in terms of Section 177 of the Constitution.
News24 reported last year that Parker was the first judge in South African legal history to respond with silence to serious misconduct complaints.
Parker’s advocate, William King SC, had submitted that his silence should not be considered an “aggravating factor” in determining what sanction he should face regarding the undisputed evidence of dishonesty and trust fund misappropriation against him.
In other words, his decision not to explain or dispute the accusations against him should not, inevitably, result in him being removed from the Bench.
That removal would strip Parker of all his judicial benefits, including his salary for life.
