South Africa’s Judicial Conduct Committee has oveturned the dismissal of a complaint by Henry Emomotimi Okah, jailed former leader of Nigeria’s Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).
The four member panel rules that documents Okah filed in an appeal process were tampered with, hence the case being referred.
It said, “The dismissal of the complaint is set aside and the matter is referred to the Acting Chairperson for an inquiry under section 17 of the Act.”
Okah had accused South Africa’s Chief Justice Raymond Zondo of being behind the tampering of documents in his appeal filing, making it defective and led to his appeal dismissal.
Though the Acting Chairperson of the Judicial Conduct Committee had summarily dismissed Okah’s complaint for having defects, he challenged the dismissal, making the committee grant it.
According to the committee; Okah, the leader of “Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND)“ was arrested in South Africa in 2010 for terrorist activities committed by the movement in Nigeria.
The former MEND leader was tried and convicted by a South African High Court and sentenced to a 24-year jail term.
He disagreeed with the ruling which he said violated Section 37 of the South African Constitution and Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949, and challenged it in court.
During the legal battle, the former MEND leader alleged that staff members in the office of the court registrar, at Zondo’s directive, replaced documents in his file with fake documents to sabotage his application. His complaint was however dismissed.
In upholding Okah’s complaint, the Judicial Conduct Committee noted that it was “about conduct which occurred before the application was considered and which, according to the complainant, was designed to frustrate them.”
The committee noted that Chief Justice Zondo didn’t respond, despite given the opportunity to respond as required by law, and held that an inquiry be carried out on the complaint.
