Posted on 03/15/21
| News Source: Algemeiner
South Africa’s chief justice on Sunday rebuffed a demand that he publicly apologize for comments in which he criticized his country’s hostile policy toward the State of Israel, countering that he had not overstepped his authority as a judge in doing so.
Mogoeng Mogogeng told a prayer meeting on Sunday night that the constitutional provision invoked to censure him on four counts of misconduct had been misapplied. “That provision is about ensuring that while you are a judge, you can’t become a mayor, you can’t become a premier, you can’t become a minister, you can’t become a member of Parliament because you will then be exercising executive authority,” Mogoeng stated, saying that he had made his points about Israel as a South African “citizen.”
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South Africa’s Judicial Conduct Committee (JCC) — which investigates complaints made against judges — had found Mogoeng guilty on March 5 for comments made at an online seminar in June 2020, in which he appeared alongside South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein. Mogoeng invoked his Christian faith as the reason for his “love” of Israel, criticizing the South African government for maintaining close diplomatic ties with the country’s former colonizers while frequently attacking the Jewish state as a reincarnation of its former apartheid regime.
Mogoeng declared at Sunday’s prayer meeting that his comments on Israel had been made under divine instruction, confirming that he would not back down. Read more at Algemeiner