Ledwaba defends handling of Phahlane bribery allegations

Acting Judge President of Gauteng, Aubrey Ledwaba, has defended his management of a case involving a judge accused of receiving bribes from members of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC).

Ledwaba spent more than two hours being interviewed before the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) for the Judge President post on Tuesday. Among the primary objections to his candidacy is a complaint regarding the conduct of Judge Portia Phahlane.

The core of the objection suggests that Judge Phahlane knew in advance that Ledwaba would allocate the IPHC leadership dispute to her, which allegedly facilitated the bribery. However, Ledwaba disputed this timeline, noting that the case was initially assigned to a different judge.

The matter was only transferred to Phahlane later, a move Ledwaba says was not contested by the legal teams at the time.

"This issue that Judge Phahlane was not supposed to deal with the trial... in my view, there is no merit in it because the parties would have objected," Ledwaba stated. "This matter was set down for three weeks, and if there was anything untoward that the judge should hear the matter, they should have raised it."

Ledwaba acknowledged that there were formal recusal applications brought against Phahlane during the proceedings. He maintained, however, that neither he nor the Judge President at the time had the authority to dictate her rulings on those applications.

"Interestingly, on the first day of the hearing, there was an application brought for the recusal of Judge Phahlane, and that recusal application was based on the fact that there are allegations that she has been bribed," Ledwaba told the commission. "Judge Phahlane dealt with the application and dismissed it. There was a second application for recusal; she also dealt with it and dismissed it."

The bribery scandal continues to move through the criminal justice system.

Judge Phahlane, her son Kagiso, and IPHC leader Michael Sandlana are currently facing formal charges related to the alleged corruption.