The make-up of South Africa’s judiciary
The South African court system is made up of one Constitutional Court, one Supreme Court of Appeal, 13 High Courts, one Labour Court, one Labour Appeal Court, one Competition Appeal Court, one Electoral Court and one Land Claims Court.
The court and judiciary are overseen by the Chief Justice: currently Judge Mogoeng Mogoeng who has been in the role since 2011. A Deputy Chief Justice assists the Chief Justice: currently the role is unfilled but President Zuma nominated Judge Raymond Zondo for the position in March 2017.
Transformation of the judiciary is a key focus for the Judicial Service Commission and the Office of the Chief Justice. Judges Matter has put together an infographic based on the numbers of the Judiciary make-up taken from statistics gathered in March 2016. This provides a visual summary of the race and gender transformation in the superior courts of South Africa.
For the purposes of this infographic we will concentrate on the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and the High Courts. Our statistics include:
- The Constitutional Court
- The Supreme Court of Appeal
- 13 High Courts of South Africa:
- Eastern Cape High Court Grahamstown
- Eastern Cape High Court Port Elizabeth
- Eastern Cape High Court Mthatha
- Eastern Cape High Court Bhisho
- Free State High Court Bloemfontein
- Gauteng High Court Pretoria (North Gauteng)
- Gauteng High Court Johannesburg (South Gauteng)
- KwaZulu-Natal High Court Pietermaritzburg
- KwaZulu-Natal High Court Durban
- Limpopo High Court Thohoyandou
- Northern Cape High Court Kimberley
- North West High Court Mafikeng
- Western Cape High Court Cape Town
Infographic of South Africa’s judges
Numbers are reflective of statistics taken from March 2016.
You really are doing a great public service…true social justice by shining a light on our justice system and its developments…looove reading your informed posts.
Hawu guys… There’s a 14th high court in Mpumalanga…. It has a judge President by the name of Legodi JP.
It has a provincial division in Mbombela and a local division in Middelburg.
It also sits as a circuit in Breyton, Mkobola, Ermelo, Grasskop and Delmas.
The court uses judges and acting judges allocated to it by Mlambo JP but Legodi JP allocates the judges when they get to MP.
The court has a chief registrar Mr Mpho Siloana as well as administrative staff. The court is fully functional and operates from the 1st floor of the magistrates court building in Mbombela (the court building as been constructed and it’s one of the first big buildings you see when you enter Mbombela but it has not been opened, I’m told they are still busy with internal fittings but it’s been about 3 years now).
Practitioners can no longer issue proceedings out of PTA if the cause of action happened in Mpumalanga. This has been the case for quite some time now.
Dear Sbu
Thank-you for sending us this information. There is definitely a High Court in Mpumalanga, but we thought it still fell under the Gauteng Division of the High Court. We have checked with the court’s registrar, and he confirms that it is still formally so. So the judges for that court still formally fall under the category of Gauteng High Court. We’d be interested to know what the delay is in proclaiming the court as its own division.