NGCOBO J on the conviction of Mr Mokoena. Neither the counsel who appeared on behalf of the DPP nor the counsel who appeared for the accused took part in those proceedings. [23] On the information furnished to us these matters were re-enrolled for hearing on 1 July 2008 at the instance of the judge. As both accused did not appear in court on that date, these cases were postponed to 24 October 2008. On 24 October 2008 only Mr Mokoena appeared; Mr Phaswane did not and was reported to be at his home in Mozambique. The court then dealt with the case of Mr Mokoena. After hearing oral argument on whether his conviction should be confirmed, the court, in an ex tempore judgment, confirmed the conviction of Mr Mokoena and postponed the case to 6 February 2009 for sentence. The ex tempore judgment was signed by the judge on 9 February 2009 and, as indicated above, was only made available to this Court some time after that date by the DPP. I shall refer to this judgment as the second judgment. [24] It is apparent from the second judgment that the judge was fully aware that he had referred the orders of invalidity to this Court for confirmation. He was also fully aware that unless the constitutional issues that he had referred to us would have no effect on the conviction of Mr Mokoena, he could not proceed to consider the conviction of Mr Mokoena without a decision of this Court on the invalidated provisions. As the judgment makes plain, he took the view that he could confirm the conviction without our decision on the constitutional issues that he had referred to us. This rendered it unnecessary for him to wait for the decision of this Court on the 13