Clerk who accused judge of racism admits to lying under oath

Judge Belinda Hartle has been accused of racism by a registry clerk. Photo: The South African Judiciary/Facebook

• Registry clerk Thozamile Semekazi has admitted to lying under oath about his phone calls with Judge Belinda Hartle’s husband.
• Semekazi accuses the judge of using the k-word, which she denies, though she admits swearing.
• The tribunal president refused to let recordings of the calls be played.

Registry clerk Thozamile Semekazi, who has accused high court judge Belinda Hartle of racism, has admitted that he lied under oath.

The Judicial Conduct Tribunal is probing Semekazi’s allegation that Hartle swore at him and used the k-word in May 2025. While Hartle admits to using a swear word because she was frustrated that files were handed in late, she denies using the k-word. The swear word was not directled at Semekazi, she has said.

Hartle’s lawyers have suggested that Semekazi’s complaint was an “act of reprisal” after the judge’s journalist husband, Ray Hartle, wrote an article reporting an anonymous allegation that Semekazi had solicited bribes, which he denied.

Testifying under oath before the tribunal on Wednesday, Semekazi denied that he was in contact with Ray Hartle before the publication of the article.

After Wednesday’s hearing adjourned, evidence leader advocate Benny Kalakgosi consulted with Semekazi and listened to recordings of the phone calls between Semekazi and the journalist.

On Thursday, Kalakgosi told the tribunal that Semekazi had admitted that he lied about three calls and confirmed that he had initiated the first one himself in March 2024.

Kalakgosi said Semekazi had told him he had lied about the calls because of safety concerns.

Justice Boissie Mbha, who is presiding, said Semekazi was a whistleblower and ruled that the recordings could not be played to the tribunal, not even “in camera”.

After the tea break, the proceedings were delayed due to safety concerns after “death threats” directed at Semekazi were posted on the livestream of the proceedings.

Semekazi said he was willing to continue with the cross-examination in spite of this.

While cross-examining Semekazi on Thursday, advocate Jan Heunis, representing Judge Hartle, asked him about how, in his complaint to the Judicial Service Commission, he had characterised Hartle as a racist with no place in democratic South Africa.

Heunis pointed out that the judge’s husband, Ray Hartle, is a black man.

But Semekazi said he knew nothing about the judge and had encountered her for the first time on the day of the alleged racist incident.

“It was not my first time working with a white judge like her … It was my first time to work with a judge who was racist,” he said.

Heunis said the judge had met her husband when interracial relationships were unlawful, and that they had married in the same year the ban was lifted. She was “highly respected” and was known to be kind and generous, Heunis said.

“Are you prepared to review your observation about her being trapped in a racist past?” Heunis asked.

Semekazi replied: “I will never change it.”

Heunis also asked Semekazi about a letter he had sent to the Judicial Services Commission, objecting to a proposal by Hartle’s legal team that both Semekazi and the judge undergo polygraph tests.

Heunis put it to Semekazi that he had not written the letter himself because it seemed to have been “written by someone with legal training”.

Semekazi denied this, saying he wrote it on his computer without any assistance. He said Heunis was “undermining” him.

Semekazi was excused in the afternoon because he was not feeling well. Kalakgosi then called Denim Kroqwana, director of court operations in the Eastern Cape.

Kroqwana said in the late afternoon of 15 May, Semekazi had come to his office, in tears, and reported that the Judge had hurled insults at him. He did not mention a racial slur. They then both went to the judge’s office with the aim of “resolving things”, but she was not there.

Asked if it was unusual to see a grown man crying, he said: “It’s not that unusual. I have tissues in my office. It happens more often than you think.”

Asked why, when they discovered that the judge had left, he had not taken Simekazi back to his office “to comfort him further”, Kroqwana said: “He is often in my office for sessions like those.”

The hearing continues.

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