High Court Judge Samuel Kudya on Wednesday yet again apparently blew away his desperate design to join the Supreme Court bench when he embaraased himself at the public interviews conducted by Chief Justice Luke Malaba.

Justice Kudya comically went into the interview with boxes of files which he claimed he was going to use as reference during the interview.

Kudya was among five judges who were being interviewed for promotion to the apex court.

Kudya was third to be interviewed among the five aspiring Supreme Court judges.

“It was in anticipation of the questions I am sure you would ask me,” he said when Justice Luke Malaba asked to explain the purpose of his luggage.

An unsatisfied Chief Justice Malaba directed the files should be taken away from him. Malaba said it was unheard of for an interviewee to bring documents to refer to while being interviewed.

“Unfortunately, we are not going to allow that. Questions are never anticipated,” Malaba said.

“You just have to answer them as they come. So, it’s unfortunate I will have to order that those boxes be removed.”

Kudya was appointed into the High Court by former President Robert Mugabe in 2004. Justice Kudya has also worked in the Fiscal Appeals Court.

This is not the first time that Kudya has attempted promotion to the Supreme Court and fumbled the interview. In 2016, When the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) was conducting interviews for four positions of judges of the Supreme Court Justice Kudya was unable to state the principle of collegiality and the doctrine of stare decisis, which he said maybe he knew it in its English version.

Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku who presided over the interview in 2016 slammed Kudya for being “lazy” after he only handed down two judgments in a full year while other judges had written more than 300.

“The pressure in the Supreme Court is more than at the High Court. Why should the Commission be convinced that you will write more judgments at the Supreme Court when you have not been writing at the High Court. Some of your fellow judges have written 330 judgments while you have written two,” said Chief Justice Chidyausiku, while interviewing Justice Kudya.

“If it was a small difference of about say 10, I would understand, but a discrepancy of about 200, we have problems with that.” Then Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba weighed in saying: “You wrote 12 judgments in 2013, it means you are not really working.” In response, Justice Kudya said he was once Acting Secretary of JSC, a position which consumed some of his time.

He said in some of the instances he disposed of some cases during pre-trial management meetings where one party would eventually withdraw. “So you are saying you are disposing the cases through arbitration and not through judgments?” asked Chief Justice Chidyausiku.

Kudya subsequently failed the interview.

This time around, Chief Justice Malaba was however kind enough suggesting to Judge Kudya to consider postponing the interview if he was not stable given that he has been hospitalised recently to which Kudya answered, “I think I am up to the task.”

Although Judge Kudya insisted that he was well, he showed signs of fatigue characterised by his late responses to oral questions.

His interview ended up taking an hour unlike those of the rest that lasted for an average of 40 minutes each.

Malaba said successful candidates will be announced soon.