The Judicial Service Commission has put a Constitutional Court complaint against Cape judge president John Hlophe on hold, a commission spokesperson said on Thursday.

The court claimed in June that Hlophe tried to influence two of its judges who were weighing up a ruling on the validity of search warrants against ANC president Jacob Zuma.

The Johannesburg High Court has since ruled that the Constitutional Court breached Hlophe's right to dignity and equal treatment when it issued a media statement on the issue.

However, it also ruled that it was in the public interest for the JSC to probe the complaint.

Commission spokesperson Milton Seligson said the body had decided that the complaint, plus a counter-complaint by Hlophe, would not proceed pending the outcome of the Constitutional Court's application for leave to appeal the high court decision.

There would be no further consideration of the matter at the JSC's current sitting, which is being held in Cape Town.

Asked if any future JSC deliberations on the matter would be made public, he said the JSC had not given any thought to what it would do.

The decision to put the complaints on hold was taken at a lunchtime meeting of the core JSC, excluding the MPs who form part of the commission when it interviews candidates for the judiciary.

Chief justice Pius Langa, who chairs the JSC, did not sit in on the part of the meeting in which Hlophe was discussed.

As head of the Constitutional Court, he is one of the complainants.

Sapa