‘He’s a disgruntled, vexatious litigant’: Lawyer hits back at ex-Unizulu employee’s disbarment bid

Ndabenhle Zulu wants attorney Joanne Philip disbarred after she represented the University of Zululand in his disciplinary proceedings A KwaZulu-Natal lawyer has hit back at a former University of Zululand (Unizulu) employee pushing for her disbarment over allegations of professional misconduct, describing her accuser as “a disgruntled, vexatious litigator”. This week, The Citizen revealed that the institution’s former acting procurement head, Ndabenhle Zulu, has taken his bid to have attorney Joanne Philip disbarred in a complaint stemming from her representation of the university in his disciplinary proceedings to the Constitutional Court. He is accusing the lawyer of unprofessional conduct for allegedly lying under oath. He claimed Philip allegedly deposed an affidavit in which she made untrue statements. He also accuses her of unethical conduct for allegedly deposing an affidavit on behalf of her client that the client did not sign. Lawyer accuses Zulu of retaliation But in her response, Philip said Zulu’s allegations of professional misconduct in the latest court challenge contain “so many untruths” and amount to defamatory statements. “I am a professional and do not necessarily want to engage in litigation through the media; however, Mr Zulu is a disgruntled litigant,” Philip said. She said Zulu’s actions were retaliation stemming from his employment dispute with the university, in which she represented the institution. “His actions are nothing more than retaliation and I, as the attorney representing his employer, have become the centre of his retaliation,” Philip said. In February 2025, KwaZulu-Natal High Court Judge Ramasamy Chetty dismissed Zulu’s application seeking her removal from the roll of legal practitioners and ordered him to pay her costs on a party-and-party scale. The judgment records that Zulu had lodged a complaint with the KwaZulu-Natal Legal Practice Council (LPC) in September 2023. The LPC’s investigating committee dismissed the complaint on 5 April 2024 and informed him that he could appeal the decision through the LPC’s internal appeal process. The High Court found that Zulu had not exhausted that internal process before approaching the court. Judge Chetty held that the LPC has a statutory role in regulating the legal profession and investigating complaints against practitioners. Philip said the courts had repeatedly rejected Zulu’s attempts to challenge the underlying disputes. “The LPC dismissed [the] complaints as there were no merits and he was aware of this. The High Court did the same and so did the SCA,” she said. Zulu’s complaint against Labour Court judge Philip also drew a parallel between Zulu’s complaint against her and a separate complaint he lodged against Labour Court Judge Nasious Moshoana. Zulu previously complained to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) about Moshoana following a Labour Court dispute arising from his former employment. In July 2024, the JSC dismissed the complaint, finding that it did not fall within the statutory grounds for judicial misconduct. Zulu challenged that decision, but the JSC upheld its dismissal in February 2025. The dispute centred, among other things, on a Labour Court judgment that Zulu said had been delivered without adequate written reasons, preventing him from exercising his right to seek leave to appeal. Moshoana told the JSC that it had delivered an ex tempore judgment, meaning the reasons had been given orally in court. The JSC noted that the Labour Court’s practice manual places responsibility on parties to arrange for a transcription of oral judgments when a written record is required. Philip said the sequence of complaints showed a pattern of Zulu pursuing people involved in his employment litigation. “He has also done the same thing against Judge Moshoana. He lodged a complaint, the JSC dismissed it, the same way the LPC dismissed his complaint against me, and he took the JSC to the High Court, the same way he did in this matter,” she said.