"earing" with an "eish!"

We're live flogging from the CTICC on the august occasion of the Judicial Services Commission hearing. A'ight?

09:06 Ten minutes to kickoff. Your humble scribe is seated behind Judge Mogoeng's proud family, who sit right behind the judge. The room is empty. Some eager students to my left. NGO-looking types to my right. Cavernous hall. Fake proteas, you get the mood.

09h25 The commissioners trickle in. I was wrong about kickoff time. I've just had the honor of shooing Mudene Smuts, former FairLady editor and occasional Justice Shadow Minister from the family seats. The ersatz proteas are eclipsed by a phalanx of queer activists with technicolor banner.

Suddenly a surge of chanting lefties (and Mark Heywood) fills the room.
Spirited toyi-toying rocks the house.

09h57 Dikgang Moseneke, The Ousted One, enters. The chamber chokes with gravitas.

10h05 Kickoff. The Ousted One (To1) introduces advocate Smith, but the Deputy Minister sticks a spoke in the wheel. Her attempt at filibuster is parried by To1 and buttressed by Ngoako the crook, and derailed and now my head hurts. But the Minister Jeff is putting his foot down... Here follows lengthy fireworks, in which a majority evolves against an incidental motion on the agenda. There's alarming disquiet at the idea of public deliberations.

10h30 The nays have it. The DA lost (momentarily) a bid to reopen the nominations. Enter Mogae.

10h38 "I have been projected as 'this man who hates women', 'this man who hates gays.'" -Mogae Mogae (MM)

10h40 MM reads his CV. Parries published attacks. He sets a trap for himself by suggesting that the criticism of him is based on only three cases.

10h55 More fire. To1 reminds MM that he's only on page 9 of a 47 page reply. Bra Jeff rises to defend MM. Dikgang backs down.

11h15 MM continues to refute the claim the he is the mess-ogenistic spawn of Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin. His logical grammar is consistent: "I'm not the worst there is." In this room's halogen glow, proof and refutation elide.

11h28 The fiddles flare. "I come from a poor background. My mother was unemployed..." And the man chokes up. This earnest display of emotion is followed by recollection of his struggle credentials ("labelled by government as communist", "my political position was known by my boss... so that not once wad I given a political trial to prosecute (by the apartheid government and the stoogely Bop kangaroo satrap.)

11h37 My blasted Android battery screws us all. Good night.

12h18: Question time. "we thank you for your dignified silence during what has been an onslaught." Judge Bernard Ngoepe.

12h42: My crap battery won't allow blow-by-blow through the questions. But the shape of the afternoon is clear: most commissioners will ask leading questions (like the bland one about access to justice he's fielding now), while the substance-based minority will be filibustered away.

OnePeeEm: Presidential proxy Bra Jeff layers on the sycophancy.

13h10 MM bucks under the first (moderately) challenging question: "i haven't done as much work as I would have liked" in considering the mechanics and wisdom of converging the apex courts.

14h10 Yummm. Boeber for lunch. You missed the part where Moseneke reminded Our Man that the job calls for intellectual leadership. Fortunately, the bumbling Deputy Minister with the fetching eye flutter saved him.
"The problem with the world is that the ignorant are cocksure, and the wise full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell
"I have no doubt, in my own intellectual depth." -MogoengX2

14h29 (It's not Moegoeng, but the paucity of the JSC that's the embarrassment.)

14h30 Divine Telepathy... MM raises the bigger point: briefing patterns are racially skewed. Even by the government. Well, this links with the tendency to protect weakness, rather than allowing (Black) excellence.
The reason why apartheid era briefing profiles have been preserved by the present government (MM's point and language) is that the government doesn't believe that technical acumen is the province of Black people. This is reflected in the timid questioning of the government appointees to the commission.

Indeed, technical questioning was largely outsourced to two geeky White folk, with most of the rest (and all of the government appointees) focussing on a medley of leading questions ("do you agree that improvement of the maintenance courts enhances women's access to justice?") and praise prose.

SometimeAfterlunch: The nerdful professor asked MM to speak the unspoken reasons why it's insulting to imply that someone's gay. Our man ducks like a goose.

To1: Why not just deal with it head-on...
MM: But how does one do that?
To1: If you listen you'll find out.
MM: There's no need for sarcasm, Deputy Chief Justice.
To1: (dignified silence and a panga-stare.)

This led to the afternoon's Van Der Merwe joke:
Oom Koos: Do you have a short temper?
MM. We all make mistakes.
OK: In fifteen years on this I've never seen such arrogance.

With which the Oom triggered an orgy of sexless apology.

With my battery to rude health restored let's add:

1. I can't cover the Sunday morning session as I'm leaving town.

2. I expect a 15/7 vote in favor of confirmation. But then math is not a Truecents virtue.

3. Twas a chilling contrast between Bernard Ngoepe's spirited defense of MM and his silent disinterest in the human rights concerns and evident lack of the candidate's intellectual rigour.
Given the shape of the Gauteng Judge President's priorities I'm relieved that my life of crime plays out eMzansi.

4. Something similar is true about the Minister and his Deputy. Favouring Mogoeng is perfectly compatible with defending human rights, but you do need to kick the tyres, which those two had zero interest in doing.

5. MM's opening statement ran into 47 pages in which he dealt with the criticism levelled against him.

6. Something needs to happen to transform the JSC from a rubber stamp into a tyre-kicker.

7. By his own admission, MM is not the intellectual type. "I've never really had a passion for publication," explaining why he's published not a thing. His answer about why he declined to explain his dissent in the gay-bating case was helpful:

A) "There was a minority judgement and I didn't see the sense I'm adding two or three sentences."
B) "It would have taken two/three days to pen an opinion."
C) "In hindsight I should have added an opinion, however superficial."

From which we conclude that our incoming Chief Justice dissents (and decides?) superficially, on the basis of reasons unavailable to him at the time, and writes at the breakneck rate of one sentence per day.

Divers Fan-quotes:

"I would like to refute any suggestion... that I am homophobic.

"That cautionary rule... has not been abolished."

"I fully embrace the Christian faith... My church... does not have at its core values... that homosexuality is... deviant. The church is not founded on homophobia."

"Protecting the rights of homosexuals is my duty... as set out in Romans 13."

"That I have not delivered a ground-breaking judgement is neither here nor there."

"At the time there was no certainty about whether a judge's spouse or child could appear before him."

"Perhaps, on reflection, I should have submitted an argument, however superficial."

"Honourable Chair, I feel there is no place for impatience here. I deserve a chance to state my case."

Zapiro Alert: "My concerns (about Freedom of Expression) are vindicated by some of the cartoons that have been published."

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