Andiswa Mengo giving evidence during the tribunal against Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge. Picture: Office of the Chief Justice / N Mabusela
THE judge’s clerk who claimed that Eastern Cape High Court Judge President Selby Mbenenge sexually harassed her, faced tough questions from his lawyer, who told her “you too had said disgusting things”.
Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane questioned Andiswa Mengo at length as to why, in her complaint against Judge Mbenenge, she mentioned all the sordid things that she claimed the judge did and said to her, yet she remained mum about her messages to him.
Mengo concluded her main evidence on Tuesday before the Judicial Conduct Tribunal that is investigating the complaints laid by her. She is now being cross-examined by Sikhakhane.
“You also resorted to solicitous messages. Why did you hide your messages? Did you not want the panel to know that you too, sent disgusting things,” he asked her.
Sikhakhane pointed out that Mengo had sent the judge one message in which she said she wanted “the private part halfway in”, while in another message she said she did not have a preferential sexual position as she liked to be surprised.
He said she omitted these messages in her complaint against the judge president as she only wanted to convey what Judge Mbenenge had sent her while trying to portray her innocence.
“You want to portray yourself as the good party and him as the bad party,” Sikhakhane told her.
Sikhakhane said some salacious chatting did take place between her and the judge president, but she was equally salacious.
“It’s you who said ‘I want you lusting so that you are energised’,” he told Mengo.
Her response to these questions was a “yes”.
“This is misleading and wrong,” Sikhakhane told Mengo.
He kicked off his cross examination by questioning Mengo at length about the fact that it is equally damning for an accuser to lie about the sexual harassment she claimed she had suffered, as it is for the accused to be found guilty of the harassment.
He pointed out that Mengo, in her complaint, asked that Judge Mbenenge be found guilty of sexually harassing her and she added that he should be institutionalised for it.
Sikhakhane said this should also be the case if it is found that she is guilty of lying or committing perjury.
He questioned her at length about whether she was a liar, to which Mengo responded she was not.
He then asked her why she told the tribunal that she in many of their messages lied to Judge Mbenenge, but she responded to his messages with what she thought he wanted to hear.
“In many of the messages where you communicate that you are playing along, but where you told the tribunal you were lying.”
Mengo responded that she lied because she was afraid of the judge president and she had to work with him in court.
The advocate said it is not disputed that his client and Mengo exchanged various text messages.
“But it must determine whether this amounts to flirting or sexual harassment. What the panel must determine is not that the two of you were flirting with each other, or that the two of you were sending each other salacious messages.
“It is not for them to judge whether it’s right for you to send each other such messages. They must determine whether there is evidence that these messages were unwanted and created an intimidating environment for you,” he told Mengo.
Mengo, meanwhile in completing her main evidence, said her experience with Judge Mbenenge had “broken her”.
“It took away my dignity. It took away the kindness I always showed to my colleagues and people around me. It left me naked. It tore me apart,” an emotional Mengo told the tribunal.
Asked why she came forward with her complaint against Judge Mbenenge, Mengo responded that she wanted her colleagues and other women in her position to know that it is possible to be brave and come forward.
Asked whether she was ever in a romantic relationship with Judge Mbenenge, Mengo responded “never”.
Proceeding.
zelda.venter@inl.co.za
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