[1] During that time, in 1993, he was the instructing attorney for the Motsuenyane Commission of Enquiry, which the African National Congress appointed internally to investigate allegations of abuses in Umkhonto we Sizwe military camps.
[1] During that period, in 2013, he presided in Democratic Alliance v Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions and Others, a highly prominent case concerning the so-called spy tapes saga.
[4] Mathopo ruled in favour of the opposition Democratic Alliance in ordering the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to make public the "spy tapes" – taped conversations between prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka and Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy – which had led the NPA to withdraw its corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma.
[5][6] However, Mathopo declined to find acting NPA head Nomgcobo Jiba guilty of contempt of court for her failure to release the recordings before then.
[2][15][16] Other majority judgements he wrote while acting in the Constitutional Court included MEC for Health, Western Cape v Coetzee;[17] National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa v Aveng Trident Steel;[18] and Premier of Gauteng v Democratic Alliance,[19] which set aside the decision of the Gauteng Executive Council to place the City of Tshwane under provincial administration.
[23] The Sunday Times reported that Mathopo was a "favourite candidate among lawyers",[2] and the panel praised him for his involvement in judicial education and mentorship.
[24] However, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution challenged the recommendation, citing inappropriate treatment of some of the other candidates, and the Judicial Service Commission agreed to re-run the interview process.
[27] Commentator Eusebius McKaiser commended him for "not gaming like some of the other candidates when asked thorny questions, but offering honest answers and making a case for why he holds these thoughts".