Johannesburg – Retired Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng, presiding in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, has put his foot in it with comments about the tardiness of lawyers in a “South Africa run by blacks”.
Judge Mokgoatlheng expressed frustration that Advocate Charles Mnisi, for accused number one, who is participating in the Comrades Marathon in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) on Sunday, 8 June 2025, indicated he would not be available on Monday.
Declining any suggestions of an adjournment for Monday, the judge said he would need to justify the lack of proceedings to Gauteng High Court Judge President Dunstan Mlambo.
Mokgoatlheng inexplicably added: “This is what happens in a South Africa run by blacks.
“I can tell you now, even if you call Uncle Tom, I don’t think a white advocate will ever have the gall to ask me that. Never.”
Judge Mokgoatlheng’s remarks have drawn the ire of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development.
On Thursday, 5 June 2025, the portfolio chairperson, Xola Nqola, said he noted “with grave concern the unfortunate remarks by Judge Ratha Mokgoatlheng in the Senzo Meyiwa trial.
Nqola said the comments border on racism.
“We want to strongly condemn these totally unacceptable utterances,” said Nqola.
“The incompetence or behaviour of legal practitioners has nothing to do with race, as he has alluded to in court.
“The remarks are extremely unfortunate and a gross generalisation.”
Meyiwa, who was Bafana Bafana’s skipper, was murdered at his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s family home in Vosloorus on 26 October 2014.
The suspects – Mthobisi Mncube, Mthokoziseni Ziphozonke Maphisa, Ntuli, Muzikawukhulelwa Sibiya, and Bongani Sandiso Ntanzi – were arrested six years later, and their trial only began in 2022 in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, where it has faced multiple delays and restarts.
However, Judge Mokgoatlheng put his foot down on the matter, saying: “If Mr. Mnisi doesn’t want to come to court on Monday, that’s his business. I will be in court”.
