Cape Town – The Judicial Service Commission (JSC) is likely to face legal challenges after some civil society organisations expressed their displeasure over the interview process for the country’s next Chief Justice.
This comes after the JSC announced on Saturday that it recommended Supreme Court of Appeal president Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya for the post.
Maya was the only woman among four candidates for the Chief Justice position.
She beat acting deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo and Justice Mbuyiseni Madlanga.
The JSC interviewed each of them individually over the course of four days.
The interviews, however, were tainted by politics, particularly when it came to Zondo and Mlambo.
According to The Citizen, Paul Hoffman, the director of Accountability Now, said he believed Maya’s interview had been “unnecessarily polluted by the comments made because she is a woman”.
During her interview, Maya was asked why she, as a woman, would be a suitable appointment. She responded that she was good “not simply because I am a woman. I’m just a good woman judge”, the report said, adding that legal experts felt these lines of questions did not provide a fair chance for the four Chief Justice candidates.
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Quoting Sunday Times, the report said that the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF) was speaking to other NGOs about legal action to challenge the interviews, which it labelled “tainted” and “irrational”.
“Many in South Africa will want to applaud the possible appointment of our first female chief justice. But the recommendation of justice Maya as a result of a tainted, irrational, degraded process is no victory at all,” HSF executive director Nicole Fritz was quoted as saying.
According to Mail & Guardian, when it came to Zondo and Mlambo, politics arguably won the day.
“Mlambo had to endure the procedurally unacceptable indignity of being confronted with unsubstantiated allegations of sexual harassment. He memorably termed these “gossip” designed to sink his candidacy”, the report said.
It also said that Zondo suffered a barrage of insinuations that he had used his position as chairperson of the commission of inquiry into state capture to “curry favour with President Cyril Ramaphosa and persecute former president Jacob Zuma.
“Unfortunately, the JSC has conducted itself in a manner that has undermined respect for integrity for the judiciary, said Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) member Lawson Naidoo as quoted by EWN.
It remains Ramaphosa’s sole decision to appoint the head of the judiciary.
If appointed, Maya would be the country’s first female Chief Justice.
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Compiled by Sinothando Siyolo
