Ditsobotla Local Municipality’s ousted municipal manager, Olaotse Bojosinyane, has reported two North West High Court judges to Chief Justice Mandisa Maya for violating court procedures, ignoring appeals, and effectively conspiring to remove him from office without due process.
The two are judge Maria Reid and acting justice Jenine Khan.
In a sworn affidavit addressed to Maya, dated May 15, Bojosinyane alleges that Judge Reid granted a court order in his absence, failed to notify relevant parties, disregarded statutory requirements, and enforced a judgment already under appeal.
Bojosinyane’s complaint centres on a sequence of legal events following his controversial appointment as municipal manager on July 4, 2024, with his tenure beginning July 8. Just two days into his role, Thapelo Sehemo, an employee and former speaker, applied for an urgent court order to nullify the appointment. Judge Reid struck this matter from the roll, citing “lack of urgency”.
However, the North West MEC for Cooperative Governance, Oageng Molapisi, filed a review application three months later to challenge the validity of Bojosinyane’s appointment.
On March 14, acting justice Raymond Titus ruled against Bojosinyane’s appointment, a decision which he immediately appealed. Despite this pending appeal, Reid on April 4 presided over an application to enforce Titus’s judgment. On April 10, she allegedly approved a draft order “by agreement” between Molapisi’s legal team and Ditsobotla Municipality’s attorneys, Sifumba Attorneys, to remove him from his job.
He asserts that the order was granted despite his filed notice of intention to oppose and without informing his legal representatives. “Justice Reid violated my rights by granting an order … in my absence notwithstanding … my notice of intention to oppose,” Bojosinyane states, further alleging
that the judge failed to comply with the rule requiring a complete record of proceedings and reasons from the municipality when judicial review is sought.
“She reviewed and set aside my appointment … without being privy to the record … together with such reasons the municipality was required to give.”
Bojosinyane also claims that Sifumba Attorneys and the MEC’s legal team misled the court by enrolling the matter on the “unopposed roll” despite active opposition from other respondents.
He said Sifumba Attorneys were fully aware that other parties had not withdrawn their intention to oppose. He accuses Reid of complicity in granting the order while aware that multiple parties were still contesting the review.
Last month Reid issued another order enforcing Titus’s March 14 judgment, stating that the parties had agreed to “renege on [Bojosinyane’s] appointment” – a claim Bojosinyane dismisses as “false and unlawful”. He added that Reid ignored his application for leave to appeal and laws which provide that judgements under appeal are automatically suspended.
“It is inconceivable how Justice Reid could have relied on a judgement she granted … knowing very well it was subject to appeal,” Bojosinyane writes in his affidavit.
Bojosinaye has also alleged that Khan refused to allow an affected party’s legal representative to be heard in an urgent matter, even as a pending appeal was in place.
He said on May 9, his lawyers were denied the opportunity to present their case in an urgent court application. “Our lawyers, upon receiving this urgent application, hurried to acting Justice Khan’s chambers and requested a meeting, but this request was denied by her secretary, Tshepiso Marumo, allegedly because the applicants’ lawyers were not present in person due to the proceedings being held online,” Bojosinyane recounted.
His attorneys emailed Khan a copy of their notice of appeal just before 2pm that day. “The secretary printed out the appeal notice, took it into acting Justice Khan’s office while our lawyers waited, but then came back and told them that acting Justice Khan refused to accept the document because it was not formally part of the urgent application being heard that day,” Bojosinyane described.
Bojosinyane alleges that his attorney, Bongani Zisiwe, was denied the right to represent them once the virtual hearing began. “Once the hearing began, our attorney, Mr Zisiwe, introduced himself as representing us – the appellants – and explained that we had a direct interest in the urgent application being discussed since it concerned the same judgements we were appealing,” he recounted.
“However, acting Justice Khan simply asked Mr Zisiwe if he was representing Absa Bank Limited, and when he said no, she told him that she could not hear him because we were not formally listed as respondents in the urgent application, and she instructed the applicants’ advocate to continue,” Bojosinyane stated.
“I would like to point out that this urgent application was brought against Absa Bank Limited and, for reasons unknown to us, was never formally served on us, despite affecting us directly,” Bojosinyane asserted.
Bojosinyane said the legal saga began mid-March 2025. “To give some background, acting Justice Raymond Titus delivered an immediate oral decision in mid-March 2025 and granted certain orders in one of the matters under discussion,” he stated. It took about two weeks for the written reasons to be delivered.
“It is important to note that the judgement delivered by acting Justice Titus is currently being appealed, and this appeal process automatically suspends the implementation of that judgement and its orders,” Bojosinyane emphasised,
Despite the pending appeal, Bojosinyane said the opposing side filed an urgent application before Reid to enforce the suspended judgment.
“Myself and eighteen others opposed this urgent application, and Justice Reid decided to delay her final decision on the matter,” he noted.
However, by the end of April 2025, Reid ruled that “the previous judgement by Titus [could] be enforced immediately, disregarding the automatic suspension that usually comes with a pending appeal,” Bojosinyane summarised.
The Judicial Services Commission (JSC) has acknowledged receipt of both complaints against Reid and Khan. In a letter dated last Monday, the secretariat of the JSC Dimakatso Ramaisa said the complaint against Khan would be forwarded to the Judicial Conduct Committee “for consideration”.
