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#Pool corruption in file area full

Swart, when contacted, proffered a more diplomatic “no comment”, but her leaked May 2017 draft report offers some insight into the obstacles she faced.Īccording to the draft, the investigators subpoenaed the departmental computer that Gumede had used and also approached Gumede through her lawyer for an affidavit. “She is up against the old guard… In her words, they have no balls,” says Joseph (of whom more later). “Teresa Swart is the hero in this story,” says Jamie Joseph, who is a high-profile environmental activist and journalist – and also angry woman number 3. Given Gumede’s own tainted reputation, the commission moved, initially, with commendable speed.īy Jthe commission had appointed two senior magistrates to investigate her allegations: Eddie Mashile, then chief magistrate of Johannesburg, and Teresa Swart, then acting senior magistrate at Germiston.

The department of justice wanted to get rid of her because they wanted to hide Mr Nzimande’s skeletons.

She was sexually harassed by Nzimande and.

Her transgressions relating to not keeping office hours occurred with Nzimande’s knowledge.

Other colleagues had been subjected to the same treatment.

At times when she refused to lend him money, he would threaten to take away her contract and informed her that the minister might sign it, but that he (Nzimande) had the last say.

Nzimande had extorted money from her since her appointment and had borrowed more than R140 000 from her.

Nzimande was a compulsive gambler and that he had a gambling problem.

On that same day, Gumede mailed a formal complaint against Nzimande and copied in the minister’s office and the Magistrate’s Commission. On June 30 2015, Gumede’s acting appointment was not renewed by the deputy minister of justice, who makes such appointments on the recommendation of the regional court president – in this case Nzimande. It appears it was only when her acting-appointment was terminated that she turned against Nzimande. When the Witness revealed in June 2015 that Pietermaritzburg’s regional court prosecutors had unanimously lodged a complaint accusing her of being “discourteous and unprofessional”, she hit back, accusing her colleagues of incompetence and declaring that the dispute had its roots in jealously “between permanent district court magistrates and outsiders who they believe ought not to be awarded acting posts in the regional court”. Indeed, she seemed to think she was untouchable. Gumede was allowed to continue serving as an acting regional court magistrate even though a criminal case was opened against her. Gumede, a lawyer who was one of the acting magistrates appointed under Nzimande’s watch, was herself investigated by the Magistrate’s Commission after she was arrested in March 2015 for defeating the ends of justice.Īccording to a later report in the Natal Witness, Gumede entered a police station premises and spoke to a witness who was due to testify in a rape case against one of her relatives. Thinake Gumede is the person who first blew the whistle on Nzimande – though she is no heroine.

#Pool corruption in file area full

The full response of the commission is here. The delays in finalising the Magistrate’s Commission probe raise questions about the commitment and structure of the commission as the statutory body that exercises discipline over magistrates. Nzimande, through his attorney, was provided with detailed allegations for his comment.

In particular, Nzimande’s alleged patronage network appears to overlap partially with a group of court officials in northern KwaZulu-Natal who are alleged to have taken bribes – particularly around poaching cases, although, as we shall see, this was exposed because of a rape case. Worse, it appears he enabled – directly or indirectly – the formation of a network of judicial officers who are allegedly using their position to pervert justice on behalf of criminals. In summary, Nzimande is suspected of offering acting magistrate positions in the regional courts in exchange for cash, which he seemingly needed to feed a gambling habit.

It should be noted that the evidence is untested and amaBhungane’s knowledge is partly based on an incomplete draft of the investigation report as it stood at May 2017 – but still, in the words of one source close to the investigation, the picture is “scary”. Investigative journalism takes time and money.