Former legal secretary testimony raises eyebrows over misplaced sexual harassment complaint

Former Judicial Service Commission secretary, Kutlwano Moretlwe’s version of events, which related to the misplaced initial sexual harassment complaint lodged by Andiswa Mengo, came under scrutiny at the continuation of the Judicial Conduct Tribunal.

Moretlwe continued her testimony for a second day at the Tribunal on Thursday, where she was probed by panelist Advocate Nasreen Rajab-Budlender who described Moretlwe’s evidence as “concerning”.

According to Moretlwe, she was alerted to a complaint on December 7, 2022 when she was introduced to Mengo who wanted to lodge a complaint against Judge President Selby Mbenenge and this was done late in the day before the courts were to go on their recess period and before Mengo was to depart to the Eastern Cape.

Moretlwe told the Tribunal that she and Mengo met in her office but later moved to Mengo’s hotel room where the rest of her statement was taken. Moretlwe said she had typed the narrated version of Mengo’s complaint as Mengo was emotional during the detailing of her complaint and she saw that it was “going to be a long story”.

According to Moretlwe, it got late and she then had to leave at some time during the evening and had asked Mengo to continue typing the complaint, it was arranged they would meet the next day. 

The initial complaint was handed to the former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo on December 12, 2022 however, according to Moretlwe, this complaint was misplaced and Zondo had contacted Moretlwe to inform her of the incident.

Zondo then allegedly requested Moretlwe to communicate this with Mengo but requested that the “new complaint” be filed in the form of an affidavit. The initial complaint was completed on a JCC complaint form. 

It was Moretlwe’s submission that when she was contacted by Mbenenge’s counsel to get a copy of the initial complaint - by this time she was no longer a secretariat at the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) - she had forgotten that the complaint was misplaced. 

It was her further testimony that her memory was “jogged” that the initial complaint was misplaced after she heard Mengo’s testimony at the start of the Tribunal earlier this year.

Despite numerous previous searches at Moretlwe’s old office for the complaint, she said she was able to retrieve it on her personal laptop filed under a personal folder. 

The initial complaint she found on her laptop was not commissioned and this copy was sent to the Tribunal on January 13. 

Adv Rajab-Budlender stated that Moretlwe’s evidence was “difficult to believe” after she revisited the transcript of Moretlwe’s evidence given Wednesday at the Tribunal.

Rajab-Budlender said by the time the initial complaint was sent to counsel, just before 1pm on January 13, Mengo “had not even mentioned the misplaced complaint at all”.  

“I want to put it to you that you could not have had your memory jogged about the misplaced complaint by hearing Miss Mengo testifying about the complaint before 12.53pm."

Rajab-Budlender asked Moretlwe if she may have been mistaken about how her memory was jogged to which Moretlwe confirmed she may have been mistaken. 

“I find that difficult to believe... a case like this is not an ordinary case. You yourself spoke about it as being very sensitive, so sensitive that you didn’t even save the document to your work computer… I’m finding it difficult to believe that you wouldn’t remember that you had a saved copy of this document, that it was misplaced and saved on your laptop but you say that you remember everything on December 7 and 8 with perfect clarity…you say that your memory there, is not flawed,” said Rajab-Budlender. 

The Tribunal hearing continues.

Cape Times