ATC141028 : Report of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services on the Report on the Conditional Upliftment of the Provisional Suspension of Magistrate P Hole, dated 28 October 2014:

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services on the Report on the Conditional Upliftment of the Provisional Suspension of M agistrate P Hole, dated 28 October 2014:

The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services, having considered the Report on the conditional upliftment of the provisional suspension of M agistrate P Hole , reports as follow s:

1. Mr Hole is a Regional Magistrate at Kimberly. (He was appointed a magistrate in December 2006 and, in March 2007, was appointed as a Regional Magistrate.)

2. Mr Hole was provisionally suspended on 29 September 2011 pending an investigation into his alleged misconduct. Parliament confirmed Mr Hole’s provisional suspension on 24 November 2011. Subsequent to the suspension, the Legal Aid Board Northern Cape and the Director of Public Prosecution addressed a memorandum to the Magistrate Commission requesting that Mr Hole’s suspension be uplifted in order for him to finalise his partly-head matters. Childline Northern Cape also brought an application before the Northern Cape High Court to have his suspension lifted to enable him to finalise his partly-heard matters. In its papers, Childline alleged that the suspension of Mr Hole would cause tremendous hardship on the women and children involved in the said partly-heard matters.

3. The Justice Minister considered the application and the memorandum and recommended that Parliament pass a resolution in terms of Section 13(3) (g) of the Magistrate Act of 1993 to lift the provisional suspension of Mr Hole. The Minister further noted that the lifting of Mr Hole’s suspension would not affect the disciplinary process. T he National Assembly approved the conditional upliftment of Mr Hole’s suspension on 20 June 2013. The Magistrates Commission was requested to provide regular reports to the National Assembly on whether Mr Hole is abiding by the conditions of the upliftment and the progress of the cases before Mr Hole.

4. The progress reports indicates that 17 of the 26 partly heard matters have been finalised and the disciplinary proceeding were scheduled to continue in September and October 2014.

5. The Committee welcomes the fact that Mr Hole is complying with the conditions of the upliftment of his suspension. The Committee is also pleased that Mr Hole is close to finalizing all partly heard matters before him.

Report for information purposes