Mbenenge tribunal: Use of emojis and their meaning take centre stage

JOHANNESBURG - Evidence leader in the judicial conduct tribunal investigating allegations of sexual harassment against Eastern Cape Judge President, Selby Mbenenge, has asserted that it’s incorrect to suggest that the top judge and high court secretary, Andiswa Mengo, always used emojis with the intention to convey the standardised meaning attached to them.

Advocate Salome Scheepers began with her cross-examination of information communications technology (ICT) expert, Dr Vincent Mello, before the fact-finding body in Sandton, Johannesburg.

Mello is the second witness to be called in defence of the senior judge in the misconduct probe against him after Mengo accused him of making unwanted sexual advances towards her between 2021 and 2022, mostly on the social media platform WhatsApp.

However, Mbenenge said he understood Mengo’s usage of the emoji with the monkey covering its eyes to be flirtatious.

But Scheepers said the meaning attached to it in the Unicode data laboratory and Emojipedia is different.

“Ms Mengo informed me that she was going to be in East London and I asked her if we could be intimate. Her response was to quote a biblical verse, but at the same time attached two emojis depicting a monkey closing its eyes with its hands, which I understood to be flirtatious.”

“Nowhere in Unicode or in Emojipedia, the meaning flirtatious is attached to this emoji. Is that correct?”

Replied Mello: “Yes.”