Disgraced former Western Cape Judge President ,John Hlophe, is back. Hlophe became one of the first two South African judges to be impeached. He was impeached together with judge Nkola Motata. Last night, uMkhonto weSizwe Party confirmed that he has been appointed as their Chief Whip in the National Assembly. Hlophe will run the Chief Whip office of the party with former MK Secretary General, Sihle Ngubane,who is the Whip of Provinces.

His appointment comes just four months after Members of Parliament voted for his removal and stripped him off from his lifetime benefits. An investigation from the case that has been ongoing for 16-years found that Hlophe tried to influence justices at the Constitutional Court in a case relating to former President Jacob Zuma.

Hlophe approached two justices in 2008 to see if they would support Zuma in a decision relating to an Arms Deal corruption case. An investigation by an oversight body, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) found that in 2008 Hlophe had made contact with two of the eleven judges of the Constitutional Court in an attempt to favour Zuma in his Arms Deal case. Zuma denied the corruption allegations and there was no suggestion that he had anything to do with Hlophe's actions.

This was confirmed by the party's Secretary General Arthur Zwane in a statement when they were outlining the responsibilities of the Chief Whip and Whip of the Provinces last night. "The leasing all Parliamentary Constituency offices will be centralised. This will be done in line with the stability and growth strategy as well. The sourcing and appointment of human resources will also be centrally managed by the Head Office. This strategy is designed to maintain consistency in the hiring practices and to align all human resource activities with the strategic goals of our party," Zwane said.

"In implementing these directives, we will maintain a close consultation process with the Office of the Chief Whip at both the national and provincial levels. Your insights and inputs will be invaluable as we navigate this critical phase of our party's growth. These arrangements are provisional and will be reviewed periodically in consultation with all stakeholders involved. Our goal remains to decentralise these responsibilities back to the provincial structures once we are confident in their stability and capacity to manage these functions independently," read the statement by Zwane.