News24 | High Court judge arrested for alleged corruption

• Gauteng High Court Judge Portia Phahlane has been arrested. ⁠
• It is alleged that she received bribes while presiding over a case in the International Pentecost Holiness Church’s succession battle.
• Michael Sandlana and Vusi Ndala, who are accused of paying her kickbacks, have also been arrested.

Gauteng High Court Judge Portia Phahlane – who was arrested on Tuesday evening on charges of corruption – allegedly received more than R2 million in kickbacks to rule in favour of one faction embroiled in the International Pentecost Holiness Church’s (IPHC) succession battle.

Phahlane, who was appointed to the Bench in 2021, was arrested along with her son in Gauteng on Tuesday.

Insiders close to the investigation confirmed her arrest to News24 and said it related to her allegedly receiving payments for favourable rulings in the IPHC succession battle.

The IPHC, founded by Frederick Modise in the 1960s, became the subject of intense litigation after the death of his son, Glayton Modise, in 2016, which led to a battle over who should take over.

Three factions were vying for the position of IPHC “comforter”, which included two of Modise’s sons, Tshepiso and Leonard, who were squaring off against each other, and a third contender, Michael Sandlana, who also claimed to be Modise’s biological son.

READ | Succession battle over Modise’s throne heats up

According to insiders in the investigation, it is alleged that the faction Sandlana led made several payments to Phahlane after a court official introduced them.

While some of these payments were allegedly made in the form of cash given to the judge during clandestine meetings, a R2 million payment was also allegedly made towards a multimillion-rand property that Phahlane was in the process of buying in 2022.

Sandlana and Vusi Ndala – who has been referred to as a spokesperson for one of the church’s factions – were arrested on Wednesday morning.

The IPHC succession case – which was set down for trial in February 2023 – did not come to fruition as the brothers ultimately withdrew their application, even though they still contested that Sandlana was not the rightful successor.

Recusal application

Before the matter came to a halt, Leonard Modise lodged a recusal application against Phahlane, based on allegations that Sandlana had bribed the judge to rule in his favour.

In a judgment dismissing the recusal application in March 2023, Phahlane noted that the alleged originator of the allegations, Sandlana’s attorney, had distanced himself from the claims.

The recusal application was based on the affidavit of an advocate, Goodwill Maluleke, who claimed Sandlana’s attorney, Sifiso Twala, had told him about the bribe in November 2021.

“... Mr Leonard Modise relies on an affidavit of Mr Maluleke who has perjured himself because it is inconceivable that in November 2021, when nobody knew that I would be sitting in this matter, and even before a letter was addressed to the [deputy judge president] on 18 March 2022 to allocate a case management judge, that Mr Twala would have met with M. Maluleke and told him that I have been sanitised,” Phahlane said in her judgment.

READ | Church leader’s son fights for R200m luxury fleet in estate battle

At the time, she said the incorrect facts relating to the bribery allegations could not stand because the allegations had been made in November 2021, when the case had not even been allocated to a judge or considered for case management.

She said the matter was only allocated to her in May 2022.

Phahlane slammed the legal practitioners for lodging the application, saying the “patent anomalies, which ought to have been realised and which would have been apparent to any careful legal practitioner, it seems to me that the practitioners have failed to give proper attention and either made common cause with a case for their client and lost their independence to act in a professional manner, alternatively failed to act in a professional manner in the best interests of Mr Leornard Modise”.

She also referred the judgment to the Legal Practice Council (LPC) for investigation.

Bodyguards and death threats

While presiding over the IPHC matter, Phahlane also received death threats, which necessitated the appointment of bodyguards.

In February 2023, News24 reported that Phahlane had received “telephonic death threats on a number of occasions”, according to the Office of the Chief Justice.

It was further confirmed that the judge had received a security detail, and a criminal case had been opened.

Phahlane’s bodyguards became a regular sight in courtrooms. They were still present in 2025 when she presided over the Hugo Ferreria matter – a case of a 37-year-old man who raped and murdered his 8-day-old daughter. He was sentenced to two life imprisonment terms by Phahlane in April after pleading guilty.

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Phahlane also spent part of 2025 presiding over the murder case of Jaco Kemp, Gert van der Westhuizen, and Louis Coetzee, who allegedly beat Dumisani Phakathi to death on a farm in the North West in September 2016.

She is supposed to give judgment in that matter in February next year.

A call for Phahlane to step down

Alison Tilley, a coordinator at civil society group Judges Matter, was “deeply shocked” at the arrest.

“While the judge is innocent until proven guilty by criminal law standards, the extreme seriousness of the allegations requires the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) to act urgently to place the judge on suspension, even at this early stage. Any delay would cause irreparable damage to the reputation of the judiciary.”

The Judicial Service Commission must “urgently advise the president to place her on suspension”, Judges Matter added in the Wednesday statement.

They further stated that the JSC Act requires the JSC to consider the appointment of a Judicial Conduct Tribunal and advise the president to suspend a judge “when a formal complaint has been filed on affidavit, and a Judicial Conduct Committee has considered the complaint and recommended the appointment of a tribunal. This is the ordinary route for most complaints”.

Phahlane will find herself in the dock of a criminal court when she makes her first appearance in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court alongside her co-accused on Wednesday morning.