Ex-magistrate’s fight with justice department officials stalls

East London attorney and former Kimberley regional court magistrate Pumelele Hole seems to have reached the end of the road in his efforts to hold accountable various court officials for his woes with the justice department.

Hole was dismissed as a magistrate by parliament after a disciplinary hearing convened by the magistrate’s commission found him guilty on 10 charges of misconduct.

Over almost a year, Hole has struggled to get any progress in a police investigation of the criminal fraud charge he laid against judge-president Frans Legodi.

Legodi was chair of the magistrate’s commission and made the recommendation to parliament that Hole be dismissed.

The judicial conduct committee, which investigates complaints against high court judges, has also dismissed a complaint Hole lodged against Legodi as “lacking in substance”.

The Dispatch has seen a list of messages between Hole and a police Col Dyasi beginning in August 2019, in which Hole tries to track progress in the criminal investigation.

Hole’s troubles started when he laid a complaint against his then boss, Northern Cape regional court president Khandilizwe Nqadala, accusing him of interfering in the prosecution of notorious ANC boss in the province John Block.

Hole was subsequently suspended from his magistrate’s post and endured a disciplinary inquiry by the magistrate’s commission.

Among 10 charges, Hole was charged with actions detrimental to the administration of justice and to the office of magistrate. He had distributed a letter accusing Nqadala of lacking honesty and integrity, had refused to answer questions relating to his court roll, and had also failed to follow Nqadala’s orders.

He was convicted on all charges by the commission, which recommended to parliament that he be dismissed.

But Hole has also made a series of claims without providing any justification.

He has said that he “formed the impression the magistrates’ commission and its chairman were biased in their approach and intent upon protecting the person whose conduct I was complaining about”.

He accused Legodi and “those who conspired with him” of hatching “an elaborate and deceptive scheme to mislead parliament in order to have me removed from office”. He stated that commission official  Hans Meijer had made a “false report” to parliament’s justice and corrections portfolio committee, and that the magistrate’s commission was “a criminal syndicate”.

He subsequently laid a criminal charge at the Cambridge police station against the Mpumalanga judge-president.

Legodi has maintained his actions in relation to Hole were within the commission’s prescripts.

Hole said he was told by the investigating officer in the criminal case he brought against Legodi that the judge-president was not acting in his personal capacity in reporting to parliament but as chair of the commission, and that he had acted on the advice and information presented to him by others.

Hole said individuals could not absolve themselves of criminal liability on the basis that they had acted on behalf of a Chapter 9 institution.

“If Judge Legodi was indeed misled, as a judge he owes a greater ethical duty to disclose who misled him,” he said.

In dismissing the complaint against Legodi, the JSC said there were legal remedies available to Hole if he was dissatisfied with any magistrates’ commission decision.