Racist attacks by EFF MP Busisiwe Mkhwebane on the judiciary will not be tolerated, the Office of the Chief Justice has warned, while the DA is poised to refer the matter to Parliament's ethics committee.

The judiciary has noted with "disappointment and disapproval the racially charged" statements the disgraced former public protector had spread on social media after Supreme Court of Appeal judge Visvanathan Ponnan struck off the roll Mkhwebane's attempt to scupper her Section 194 impeachment inquiry.

In a statement, the Office of the Chief Justice noted that "a degeneration of discourse into racially charged comments is unacceptable and will not be tolerated".

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Modern South Africa, it added, was founded on the values of "human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms, non-racialism and non-sexism, supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law, as affirmed in the Constitution of the Republic".

Old animosities

However, Mkhwebane is merely following in the example of former EFF leader Floyd Shivambu, now a senior member of Jacob Zuma's MK party, which is also home to Mkhwebane's husband, David Skosana, in reviving old racial tensions.

In 2018, Shivambu opted to do so boldly in a blog post when he revived the notion from...