KZN magistrate suspended without pay

KwaZulu-Natal Magistrate Ian Blose has been suspended without pay. Photo: Brian Turner via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

• KwaZulu-Natal magistrate Ian Blose has been suspended without pay pending a disciplinary inquiry into charges that he lied on application forms for acting appointments.
• Blose was also charged with failing to disclose that the Legal Practice Council obtained a high court order in January 2022 suspending him from practising as a legal practitioner.
• The Magistrates’ Commission says Blose was given an opportunity to respond to allegations before it suspended him.
• A disciplinary hearing is expected to proceed next year.

A KwaZulu-Natal magistrate accused of lying on his application forms for acting appointments, and of failing to disclose that he had been suspended from practice by the Legal Practice Council (LPC) for misappropriation of trust funds, has been suspended without pay pending a disciplinary inquiry.

Ian Blose acted as KwaDukuza magistrate for at least two stints before being permanently appointed in February 2021. He faces three charges of misconduct relating to declarations he made in the integrity section of a pre-interview questionnaire.

Asked if there were circumstances “financial or otherwise” which could embarrass the judiciary should he be appointed, Blose had responded, “None”.

But according to the charge sheet, when he applied for acting stints in August and November 2019, he was aware that a client at his law firm had laid a complaint against him with the Legal Practice Council (LPC) alleging misappropriation of funds.

The charge sheet states that Blose contravened the Code of Judicial Conduct for Magistrates as his declaration of “none” was false and incorrect, and intended to mislead the acting Chief Magistrate, Durban.

“If you had made the correct disclosure, the acting Chief Magistrate should not have recommended your acting appointment,” the charge sheet reads.

Another charge relates to events after Blose’s permanent appointment, when the LPC in January 2022 obtained an order in the high court in Pietermaritzburg suspending him from practising as a legal practitioner.

GroundUp previously reported that Blose was also once an accused in the so-called “Amigos” corruption trial. He was charged with money-laundering amid allegations that his law firm had received and disbursed R1-million, paid by Uruguayan businessman Gaston Savoi as a “sweetener” to ANC KZN officials in return for a R144-million deal to supply water purification and self-generating oxygen plants.

The charges were later withdrawn against him.

Blose then opened up a new practice. A client later lodged a complaint with the LPC that he had handled the sale of her property, which had sold for R460,000 but she only received R200,000.

An LPC investigating committee was established in 2020. According to the LPC, the inspection could not be held at Blose’s office because “he advised that he was in arrears with his rental and the landlord had locked him out”.

He failed to produce any bank statements or accounting records and said he had been acting as a magistrate. He conceded that an amount of R240,000 was still owed to the client.

The investigating committee reported that “Mr Blose has abandoned his practice and has failed to give any written notice to the LPC of his absence from the firm”.

The LPC then obtained the high court order suspending him from practice. This was after his permanent appointment as a magistrate.

A source told GroundUp that since the controversy over his appointment broke, Blose had not been allocated any new cases, and had only been working on part-heard matters.

In response to questions from GroundUp, Magistrates’ Commission spokesperson and ethics committee chair advocate Naome Manaka confirmed that Blose had been provisionally suspended by the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs in November 2025.

“The suspension is without salary,” she said.

This was because the commission considered the “seriousness of the charges and the probable sanction should he be found guilty”.

Manaka said Blose had been given an opportunity to respond to the allegations prior to his suspension.

She said the commission would appoint a presiding officer and an evidence leader and the disciplinary hearing should proceed next year.

Manaka said there were presently 11 magistrates on provisional suspension and about 22 disciplinary hearings underway.

It is understood that the LPC is still considering further legal action against Blose.

We asked Blose to comment, via his judicial email address, but received no response.

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