C-J-logoTHE CORRUPTION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIARY

February 2026

CONTENTS

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TL;DR: Deputy Chief Justice Dunstan Mlambo is an unconvicted habitual criminal and a moral degenerate.

1. On 19 February 2024, Constitutional Court Justice Elizabeth Nkabinde (ret.) and Supreme Court of Appeal Justice Ephraim Makgoga, serving on the Judicial Service Commission's Judicial Conduct Committee Appeal Committee, found Adv Anthony Brink's criminal complaints against then-Gauteng High Court Judge President Dunstan Mlambo (now Deputy Chief Justice) facially well made on the documentary and other evidence presented against him, and recommended at the conclusion of their comprehensive 42-page assessment of it all that he be tried on Brink's charges before a Judicial Conduct Tribunal. See material excerpts. For subsequent developments, see below.

2. The Personal-Professional Corruption of Mlambo DCJ. Please note that this article is unsuitable for women and children.

3. Criminal charges loading... Stay tuned.

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INTRODUCTION: This document archive chiefly concerns the criminal and other corruption of Dunstan Mlambo, Deputy Chief Justice and member of the Constitutional Court; delegated chairman of the Judicial Service Commission's Judicial Conduct Committee; former Judge President of the Gauteng High Court Division, and before that, of the Labour- and Labour Appeal Courts; former chairman of Legal Aid South Africa ('LASA'); and current chairman of the NGO, Community Advice Offices South Africa. 

Prodigiously dishonest -- he lies as naturally as he breathes -- Mlambo DCJ has debauched every state institution he's joined.

Most insidiously, he's repeatedly corrupted the Judicial Service Commission's judicial selection and judicial disciplinary functions.

Other judges he's corrupted and judges who've covered for them feature here too; others as well.

The whole saga beggars belief: a litany of repeated criminal mendacity (fraudulently lying to a Minister, lying to Parliament, lying on affidavit, suborning perjury), demonstrated contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law (collusion in and connivance at the suppression of duly requested incriminating public records; wholesale disregard for subordinate legislation regulating public corporate governance; nepotism) and acceding to illegal improper influence in tossing a case (a note slipped to the judge under the counter, inadvertently but fortunately left in the court file) before all the prescribed papers had been filed, and without the knowledge of the two other judges falsely named in the fraudulently issued dismissal order; of dishonestly closed ranks and judicial group loyalty and consequent impunity; and of reprisal, intimidation and repeated attempted witness suppression and elimination, Mafia-style, hit after hit -- all documented.

Here's all the evidence.

You be the judge.

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'Allegations of dishonesty against judges are serious. Thus, they should never be made unless there is evidence to support them.'
-- Judicial Conduct Tribunal Decision, paragraph 19; In the matter between Justices of the Constitutional Court and Judge President M J Hlophe; 9 April 2021

'Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.'
-- Jaggers to Pip in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

'As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection.'
-- Oscar Wilde

'Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ'd only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv'd, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect.'
-- Jonathan Swift

'Oh what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive.'
-- Sir Walter Scott

'The cover-up is always worse than the crime.'
-- Anon, after Watergate

'Judges ... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office.'
-- Jonathan Swift

'The law is a web for small flies, the wasps burst through.'
-- Ancient Greek proverb

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Eight gross misconduct complaints filed in mid-2017 against MLAMBO JP (as he then was), some charging serious crimes, to wit: suborning perjury; repeatedly conniving at and colluding in the illegal and unconstitutional suppression of public records duly requested under the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 ('PAIA') to obstruct an investigation of jobs-for-pals recruitment corruption at LASA in which he was centrally involved; and lying and false 'confidential' reporting on multiple scores to the Justice Minister (fraud), and then to the Justice Portfolio Committee of the National Assembly (a statutory crime), to put down and pervert enquiries they'd separately and independently instituted into this corruption and its cover-up, involving inter alia the said persistent illegal and unconstitutional withholding of duly requested records to hinder its exposure. All documented.

The above-linked archive contains all further papers filed in the Mlambo JP case, including the criminally false affidavit he made and submitted to defeat the first of the eight complaints, in which he told objectively contradicted, provable lies; and Judicial Conduct Committee ('JCC') member Dumisani Zondi JA's 'patently dishonest' attempt (in the language of retired Constitutional Court judge Johann Kriegler about another judge) to sweep Brink's impeachable complaints against Mlambo JP under the rug.

On 10 December 2021, a JCC appeal committee comprising Elizabeth Nkabinde J of the Constitutional Court (ret.), Ephraim Makgoka JA of the Supreme Court of Appeal, and Margaret Victor J* of Mlambo JP's Gauteng Division of the High Court met to consider Brink's appeal against this stunt; and on 19 February 2024 the former two upheld Brink's appeal against the dismissal of his criminal and other capital charges against Mlambo JP, to wit that he'd lied to the National Assembly to pervert a special enquiry it had instituted at Brink's instance, lied likewise to the Justice Minister to the same corrupt end, and that he'd suborned his attorney to make and file a perjured affidavit on his behalf, on his instructions, in a court case -- and recomended that the complaints be further investigated and tried by a Judicial Conduct Tribunal. (*Victor J somehow got replaced afterwards by Mathopo J, who dissented. The JSC has no record of this irregular substitution.)

Here's the JCC decision with covering letter to Brink, and all the papers in the matter. The Sunday Times reported the decision on 10 March 2024 (street poster), as did the SABC online and on national televison and radio. (Note: Brink's complaints, including that Mlambo JP lied on multiple scores to Parliament to pervert its special enquiry (a crime) were allocated to a single judge to decide on the patently false basis that they were 'serious, but not impeachable'. The case was allocated to Betty Molemela JA, who failed to decide it, after which it was passed to Dumisani Zondi JA. Covering for Mlambo JP, Zondi JA then acquitted him of Brink's charges, without properly investigating them, as the JCC appeal committee later duly found.)

Brink's appeal against Zondi JA's decision and his invited submissions on his appeal.

On 6 May 2024, the JSC conveyed its rejection of the recommendation, claiming ludicrously falsely that 'there is no prima facie evidence to substantiate the allegations' made by Brink in his four most serious criminal and other capital complaints, all documented, which the JCC had contrariwise found well made on the evidence Brink had adduced and answerable before a Judicial Conduct Tribunal; see the JSC's letter to Brink and its press release. Brink's response requested by the Sunday newspapers, but not published. An SABC report on the JSC's rejection of the JCC's findings and recommendation.  Here's journalist Karyn Maughan's (paywalled) report about it.

Reader, after examining these marked up material excerpts from the JCC appeal committee's 42-page decision, in which those two top judges carefully reviewed and discussed Brink's charges in light of the cogent evidence he indeed provided and squarely subtantiated with supporting documents, do you also think, like the JSC claimed to do, that Brink's documented criminal and other capital complaints against Mlambo JP are unsubstantiated -- diametrically contradicting Judges Nkabinde and Makgoka's very opposite findings reported in their commendably detailed and considered decision?

Testing the integrity of the JSC's patently false alleged finding that Brink hadn't provided the JCC with evidence to found a prima facie case against Mlambo JP, and of its alleged decision to reject the JCC appeal committee's contrary findings and recomendation, Brink filed a searching request for JSC records under the Promotion of Access to Information Act on 1 July 2024.

The JSC's response two months later revealed what a farcial, utterly lawless abortion its proceedings were when the matter was discussed.

To his credit, the transcript shows that (a) Raymond Zondo CJ very properly urged and later voted, along with two other unidentified commissioners, for the adjournment of the matter to afford Brink an opportunity to address the masses of new evidence, including many documents, that Mlambo JP grossly irregularly and very prejudicially wove, unsworn, into his fantastically dishonest 223-page submissions; but (b) Zondo CJ and those two other commissioners were outvoted nine to three, despite his explicit warning to his fellow commisioners that in such an event Brink would surely take the the whole unlawful shambles on judicial review and that the JSC's decision would be overturned, like so many others in the past. (Nope, other strategic plans instead.)

But Zondo CJ was less concerned about defending Brink's right to natural justice in the decision of the matter (by observing the audi alteram partem rule) than to protect his, his fellow judges', and his JSC's reputation -- as witness the manner in which at the Judges Conference in December 2023 he rushed to defend Mlambo JP and rubbish Brink's corruption complaints against him, in the news at the time, without having examined and assessed them, lying also that he'd never been provided with any evidence of Mlambo JP's judicial corruption, even as Brink had written multiple letters about his long unresolved judicial corruption complaints both to him and to former Chief Justice Mogoeng, who would have passed them down to him as then-JCC chairman to deal with.

All in keeping with his untruthful prevarication reported by the Star newspaper on 7 February 2022 in a frontpage headline article detailing how he'd initially denied ever having met former President Jacob Zuma, then claimed he couldn't remember having done so, then admitted that he had, but claiming he couldn't remember why. The article (legible text) discussed the implications of his appalling tergiversation about this. Zuma issued a public statement about it, to which Zondo DCJ responded with a statement of his own, trying to weasel out of it very unconvincingly.

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An outright judicial corruption complaint against BASHER WAGLAY JP (now retired), then-head of the Labour- and Labour Appeal Courts, filed in July 2017. Attached to the complaint is the anonymous 'memorandum' slipped to him behind the scenes that suborned him to toss the complainant Brink's petition for leave to appeal the dismissal of his labour case, which Waglay JP inadvertently but very fortunately neglected to remove from the court file, plus the court registrar's certification of an inventory of the file's contents including this criminal instrument left at the scene of the crime.

 The 'memorandum' was almost certainly forged and uttered by Mlambo JP (as he then was), Waglay JP's long-time colleague in those courts and predecessor as head of them, having regard to the classic test of motive, ability, and opportunity in assessing circumstantial evidence indicating a likely culprit. For reasons explained in the complaint, Mlambo JP had a direct interest in seeing the appeal fail; and besides him no one else at LASA had the power, influence and connections to get to Waglay JP behind the scenes and to corrupt him in this way.

Waglay JP promptly obliged his judicial chum by dismissing the petition on the turn, even before all the prescribed papers had been filed and the matter was ripe for decision; without considering its merits -- such as the trial judge's most basic mistake in misallocating the final burden of proof (which he conceded afterwards, and LASA itself admitted), completely vitiating his judgment, just for starters -- and without the involvement, let alone concurrence, of the other two two appeal judges, Davis and Sutherland JJA, falsely named in the fraudulently issued dismissal order, who in truth were presiding in different courts in distant cities when the decision was allegedly taken en banc.

How do you suppose KwaZulu-Natal judge Daya Pillay J reacted to the clearcut documentary evidence of all this? By recoiling in horror at the rank judicial corruption in the court she used to work in, described and vouched in the application papers before her? Or by reflexively closing ranks around her former judicial brother Waglay JP and by vindictively gunning down the messenger reporting it? Find out here.

Brink wrote repeatedly to no avail to then-JSC chairperson Mogoeng CJ (now retired) and then-JCC chairperson Zondo DCJ to protest the JCC's unlawful and unconstitutional failure to decide his capital complaints against Mlambo and Waglay JJP. (Scroll down the linked page to 'Correspondence'.) Most important is the first letter (with its annexures) to Mogoeng CJ.

In January 2025, Brink wrote yet again, now to current JSC chairperson Maya CJ, about the JCC's failure to decide his complaint against Waglay JP; and Patricia Goliath DJP's undated decision of it was 'found' by the JSC Secretary in the case file a couple of weeks later. Brink's letter to Maya CJ; Goliath's truly pathetic, perverse decision; and Brink's very forthright notice of appeal soon after in March and then equally forthright submissions on the merits are linked here.

On 19 December 2025, the JCC Appeal Committee upheld Brink's appeal -- not on the merits, but on the technical ground that the complaint had been dealt with under the wrong section of the JSC Act, as Brink had pointed out -- and referred the matter to JCC chairman Mlambo DCJ, himself directly implicated in the judicial corruption in question.

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See the CONTENTS MENU for more unimaginable horrors.

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