Capacity: Judge
First appointed as a judge: February 2013 (Eastern Cape High Court, Mthatha)
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: African
Date of Birth: January 1970
Qualifications: B.Proc (1992) (University of Transkei), LLM (2007) (University of South Africa)
Key judgments:
- Mtanga v S (CA&R 33/2018) (Eastern Cape High Court, Makhanda, 14 December 2021)
- Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd v Mbane (58/2015) [2015] ZAECMHC 53
- Stephen v Member of the Executive Council for Local Government and Traditional Affairs [2014] ZAECMHC 1; [2014] 2 All SA 116 (ECM)
- S v Singana (CA&R 54/2015) [2015] ZAECPEHC 9 (4 March 2015)
Candidate Bio | Updated September 2026:
Buyiswa Majiki is a Judge of the Eastern Cape Division of the High Court, seated in Mthatha.
Born in Nqamakwe, Eastern Cape, in 1970, Judge Buyiswa Majiki obtained a BProc from the University of Transkei in 1992 and an LLM from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in 2007.
She started as a candidate attorney at Sangoni Incorporated in 1993, was admitted as an attorney in 1995, and from 1997 was a director of her own practice, Majiki & Vuba Attorneys, in Butterworth, Eastern Cape. In 2011, she was selected as a member of the Electoral Court, where she sat until she was appointed as a Judge of the Eastern Cape Division in 2013.
Since her appointment to the Bench, she acted in the North Gauteng High Court in 2016 and has since acted as Deputy Judge President in both Mthatha and Gqeberha for a combined period of 29 weeks. At the Eastern Cape High Court, Majiki serves as the Chairperson of Information and Communication Technology for the Division.
Judge Majiki has been dedicated to gender transformation and community development through her membership in various associations. She was a founding member of SAWLA, was elected its first president in 2007, and continues to serve as a training legal practitioner. She was also a founding member of the UNITRA Women’s Association, the Ubhaqa Legal Society in Durban and the Butterworth Region Attorneys Association; a member of the Cape Law Society; the National Gender Coordinator of NADEL; a member of the SA Women Lawyers Interim Steering Committee; and a member of the SACIAWJ.
In addition to her extensive membership in various organisations, she has also participated in collaborative programmes with Walter Sisulu University, including the 2023 Celebration of 100 Years of Women Lawyers: Entry into the Legal Profession and the Moot Court in 2024.
Some of Majiki’s most interesting judgments deal with the law of traditional leadership, a live and often bitter subject in the rural Eastern Cape. Perhaps the most distinctive illustration of Majiki’s judicial work is Stephen v Member of the Executive Council for Local Government and Traditional Affairs and Others (2014), where she had to navigate the intersection of statutory law, customary authority, and a contested succession to traditional leadership.
The dispute concerned the recognition of an Inkosi of the Amahlubi aseRode community. The applicant, who had served as Acting Inkosi, challenged the recognition of her nephew as the successor. The case required the court to determine, among other things, whether a faction within a Royal Family could undo the family’s earlier identification of a successor, whether the applicant’s acting tenure required formal removal proceedings, and whether the MEC could recognise a successor subject to a condition linked to the citizenship status of the senior customary heir.
In Standard Bank of South Africa Ltd v Mbane, Majiki dealt with a relatively technical commercial dispute arising from an instalment sale agreement for an Isuzu motor vehicle. The defendant resisted summary judgment on the basis that the agreement contained no express lex commissoria authorising cancellation upon default. The argument drew on authorities in which credit providers had been criticised for relying on template pleadings alleging contractual cancellation clauses that did not in fact exist.
Majiki carefully distinguished those cases. She found that Standard Bank had not sought to manufacture an express cancellation term; its particulars of claim had pleaded, in the alternative, that the relevant terms were tacit or implied and that the bank was entitled to cancel under the common law. Her judgment reaffirmed the more fundamental contractual principle that an express cancellation clause is not necessarily a precondition to cancellation. Where a breach is sufficiently material, the innocent party may elect to cancel at common law. The court therefore treated the bank’s unequivocal notice of default and cancellation as a valid exercise of that election. With the defendant unable to dispute the substantial arrears or demonstrate a meaningful defence to the claim, Majiki J concluded that the technical objection did not constitute a bona fide defence and granted summary judgment, confirming cancellation and ordering the return of the vehicle.
Her criminal jurisprudence reveals an equally careful engagement with statutory purpose. In S v Singana, Majiki considered whether a wholly suspended sentence of imprisonment imposed on a child offender fell within the amended provisions of section 85(1) of the Child Justice Act and was therefore subject to automatic review. The question turned on the deceptively simple phrase “any form of imprisonment”.
Majiki traced the provision’s legislative development and relied on Jaga v Dönges NO to conclude that a sentence does not cease to be a sentence of imprisonment merely because its execution has been suspended. More importantly, she approached the statutory language against the constitutional and restorative purposes of the Child Justice Act. Section 85 had to be understood within a framework designed to protect children and to ensure that imprisonment remained a measure of last resort. Excluding wholly suspended sentences from automatic review could produce the anomalous result that a sentence imposed on a child escaped High Court scrutiny until it was later activated following an alleged breach. Her interpretation avoided that anomaly and ensured that the protective review mechanism operated as Parliament intended. The conviction and sentence were ultimately confirmed as being in accordance with justice.
Majiki brings a rare combination to the contest for the DJP vacancy in the Eastern Cape: a long career as a practising attorney, more than a decade as a permanent judge, and recent acting stints as Deputy Judge President in both Mthatha and Gqeberha. The JSC is likely to probe how she would steer a division under operational strain.
October 2025 Interview
Interview Synopsis
Judge Buyiswa Majiki was the first candidate to be interviewed on Monday, 13 October, for the position of Deputy Judge President of the Eastern Cape High Court.
The interview began with an acknowledgement from the Chief Justice that she has a personal relationship with Judge Majiki, whom she referred to as one of her “young sisters in the judiciary”. The discussion started with Judge Majiki’s work history, which includes various roles such as counsellor and positions with the Independent Electoral Commission. In this initial portion of the interview, Judge Majiki proposed several changes she would implement if appointed Deputy Judge President — some aimed at improving the functioning of the Mthatha High Court, described as being in shambles, and others at strengthening the judiciary more broadly.
Her proposed reforms for the Mthatha High Court included bringing in more judges to assist with caseloads, continuing to implement the new Court Online system, and reviewing positions such as Court Manager to improve synergy and communication across departments. Chief Justice Maya asked why, if Judge Majiki was so passionate about these reforms, she had not already begun implementing them as a judge whose primary seat is in Mthatha. The issues facing the Mthatha court arose in the interviews of all three candidates vying for the position, but with Judge Majiki being the only one based there, she was able to provide insight into some of the structural and systemic challenges that require overhaul, such as the maintenance of certain rolls.
Judge Majiki also advocated for the creation and implementation of judicial wellness programmes, highlighting the physical and mental toll placed on judges handling multiple long-running cases, particularly those involving graphic or distressing content. She further expressed strong support for the new anti-sexual harassment policy and spoke at length about the need to be more proactive in recruiting and mentoring young women in the profession.
Concerns were raised about several objections to her appointment, stemming from allegations that she had either delayed judgments unjustifiably or provided inaccurate explanations for such delays. Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC cited one case in which, according to Judge Majiki’s account, a judgment was delayed for several months because her registrar was ill, when in fact the registrar had returned to the office three months before the documentation was placed before the judge. Judge Majiki acknowledged that this must have been an error on her part, though the commissioner appeared unsatisfied with her explanation.