I spent a great deal of the weekend, three-quarters of Saturday and half of Sunday, watching and listening to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) on TV.

As most of us know, the JSC, with deputy chief justice (DCJ) Dikgang Moseneke in the chair, interviewed Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, to check out, on behalf of the president, Mogoeng's suitability as a candidate for chief justice (CJ).

As we also know, there were some questions about Mogoeng's competence, experience, his "gender sensitivity" in terms of the way he had dealt with sentencing in certain rape cases, and his general understanding of the letter and spirit of the constitution.

I write that there "were some questions" - because question time, or official question time, is presumably now over: by late afternoon Sunday it had been leaked on twitter that the commission had voted 16-7 in favour of Mogoeng.

In other words, in direct contradiction of the evidence before them - Mogoeng's testimony and attitude - 16 members of the commission voted that a palpably self-aggrandizing and melodramatic half-competent judicial officer should become chief justice of the land. (I write "half-competent" because after a few lessons he'd probably be a passable regional court magistrate.)

The proceedings were indeed fascinating, better than any so-called reality TV that I have seen, or Idols, or any other fluff. Almost as good as House, MD or The Borgias.

In addition, as pointed out by the various talking heads that came onto TV soon after the end of proceedings (Eusebius McKaiser, Adam Habib, and Judith February), the proceedings were a so-called "victory" for the democratic process, blah blah, because they were "transparent" and all that good stuff. Though, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't important hearings of this ilk also held "transparently" in the US and Britain?

But let me not be curmudgeonly: it was indeed a victory for transparency. More importantly, it helped us understand at least two things.

The first was just how unsuitable Judge Mogoeng is for the post of CJ. Second, it demonstrated what a bunch of sell-outs (with maybe seven exceptions) represent we, the people, on the JSC.

Judge Mogoeng, first of all. He kicked off with a 47-page document; mercifully, Moseneke halted him somewhere around page nine, I think it was. These pages of undergraduate-level defensiveness were penned in response to the "five weeks of merciless attacks" on his experience, judicial record, and so on, by the perfidious media.

"Five weeks of merciless attacks"! There's nothing merciless about a bunch of newspaper articles reviewing your judicial record. I'll tell you what's merciless, Judge Mogoeng: it's being a completely powerless 11-year-old girl (or boy, for that matter) being raped. That is a merciless situation. When you begin to get even an inkling of what that might be like, of what I am referring to, come and talk about "merciless".

Then our judge gave us a bit of melodrama. Suddenly, he was unable to continue with his dissertation, he became momentarily speechless; tears pricked the sides of his eyes. Why? Because, in telling from where he came, he was referring to his mother, who had been unemployed, and his father, who was a labourer.

I am sorry for his mother and his father - and I wish them no disrespect - and I am sorry for Mogoeng too (if that's what he wants me to be about early life). But what has this sentimental family stuff got to do with the price of eggs? Was it not exhibitionistic, not to mention inappropriate, to haul this family "history" into a JSC hearing being broadcast to all of South Africa?

It reminded me of the "Four Yorkshiremen" from Monty Python's Flying Circus (Live at Drury Lane, 1974), though I doubt whether Mogoeng Mogoeng would appreciate the humour:

Second Yorkshireman: We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

Third Yorkshireman: You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

First Yorkshireman: Cardboard box?

Third Yorkshireman: Aye.

First Yorkshireman: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

Should Judge Moseneke have told us about how he went to Robben Island when he was 15? Should Judge Cameron have told us about his destitute childhood?

And let me tell you that Mogoeng's colleagues on the JSC derived a serious frisson from these self-pitying gurglings about his youth - his buddies on the JSC were seriously kleibing naches, as we say in Gaelic.

They were literally queuing up to mention that they had known him in the good old days. This one couldn't wait to tell us that he'd once shared a room with Mogoeng; this other was bursting with the news that he and Mogoeng had once taken coffee together in Pietermaritzburg. Oy vey iz mir.

We also heard that the good judge has not written any articles because it's not his "passion". I think, truth be told, it's because he doesn't know how to write articles. His passion, it would appear, is going to his church, Winners Chapel International, and being a certain type of Christian. So much so that he received a sign from the Almighty that he should go for the Chief Justice-ship.

Now, I would not lock up anyone who chooses to believe what he does. But, unlike McKaiser, who seems to think it unimportant, I do not want my CJ to be intellectually and spiritually stuck in any kind of quack faith.

So what emerged from the JSC cross-examination of Judge Mogoeng?

The media didn't afford him the courtesy of audi alteram partem, but then I have a suspicion that every approach made to the judge by media folk was met with "no comment".

Other than that he was born in a lake; he's not particularly well-educated; he's none too bright (by his own admission he's asked 10 questions only of contending advocates during four years of sitting on the Constitutional court bench); he's prickly and defensive; without gravitas or depth; self-aggrandizing; exhibitionistic; and melodramatic.

As I said, I daresay he'd be good as a regional court magistrate and he might be a competent project manager for re-calibrating our court system - he's got all the jargon about case management etc down pat - though I have to add that, though he talks a good story (‘we had this conference and we had that conference"), he has yet to achieve anything administratively.

So why did the JSC vote in favour of Mogoeng Mogoeng?

For once Adam Habib was absolutely correct. The JSC completely violated their mandate, which was to interrogate the candidate and assess, by means of the interrogation, his weaknesses and strengths and suitability for the position.

Instead, with the possible exception of DCJ Moseneke (though he also had a couple of snooty moments), they behaved like a bunch of palookas. They each came there having already made up his or her mind about Mogoeng Mogoeng. They came, in other words, with closed minds and never really interrogated the issues, which is what they were supposed to do on our behalf.

Some, like the IFP's good old Koos van der Merwe, had decided against Mogoeng ab initio. Most had decided that if he was the man the president wanted, and if he was their downtrodden black brother who had been so vilely treated by the media and the whitey establishment, well then so be it: he would get their vote.

I was not surprised at this sort of behaviour from Jeff Radebe, the minister of justice; he's the president's flack; and he was simply there (as far as he was concerned) to see to it that the President and the ANC got their way. Fair enough; that's why he gets the big bucks.

But I was deeply surprised at the behaviour of the Judge President of Gauteng, Bernard Ngoepe, who kept up a sort of Viva Mogoeng cheerleaders department going through both days. And even Judge Lex Mpati, the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal, was pusillanimous. As for Dumisa Ntsebeza SC, for whom everyone expresses such "respect", he was an absolute embarrassment.

First he told the assembly a long rambling story about himself and who he really favoured en wie-weet-wat-ook-al. Dude, tell it to someone who cares, okay?

Then the chairman of Avusa, this genius among men and expert on the media, explained to Mogoeng (if I followed it correctly - I might have fallen asleep in the middle) that it was all a conspiracy by the media - aimed at driving a wedge between Moseneke and Mogoeng. You know, Ray Hartley and Peter Bruce and Moegsien Williams and Ferial Haffajee and Mondli Makhanya and Sam Sole and Nic Dawes and so on and so forth all met a café and said: "Hey, what are you doing today? Hey, let's go through this bozo's court cases and really screw him and Moseneke." What is Ntsebeza drinking? Eau de PAC juice?

Everyone - except the seven who voted against Mogoeng - should be ashamed of themselves for having let South Africa down. But I'm sure they're not. And I shouldn't be surprised.

As James Myburgh wrote three years ago on this site: "The background to this story is that [already by] 1998 the ANC had successfully politicized the work of the JSC ... Its primary goal was shifted away from protecting the integrity of the judiciary towards ensuring the attainment of the ANC's political objectives." [My interpolation.]

In one of the episodes of South Park, Cartman is sent a goat by some children in Afghanistan. He says: "It's an Afghan goat, so it can't stay here, or else it'll choke on the sweet air of freedom."

Over the weekend I started choking on the sweet air of our democracy.

This article was published with the assistance of the Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung für die Freiheit (FNF). The views presented in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FNF.

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