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Judge Patricia Lynette Goliath

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Judge Patricia Lynette Goliath

Capacity: Judge President
First appointed as judge: January 2006 (Western Cape)
Further appointments: 2016 – Deputy Judge President (Western Cape)
Gender: Female
Ethnicity: Coloured
Date of Birth: October 1964
Qualifications: BA Law (1986) LLB (1988)(UWC) LLM (1999)(UCT)

Key Judgments:

Candidate Bio (updated September 2024): 

Judge Patricia Lynette Goliath is the Deputy Judges President of the Western Cape High Court. She currently acts as the Judge President of this Court and will do such until October 2024.

Judge Patricia Lynette Goliath has held a prominent position in the South African judiciary, including a year-long acting role at the Constitutional Court. This opportunity, spearheaded by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, aimed to broaden the pool of candidates by providing acting judges with extensive exposure to the country’s apex court.

In the landmark ruling of Rahube v Rahube and Another, Goliath delivered a significant judgment in May 2018 that dealt with the unconstitutionality of Section 2(1) of the Upgrading of Land Tenure Rights Act. The section discriminated against women by excluding them from land ownership, based on apartheid-era laws that limited property rights to male family heads. Goliath ruled the section unconstitutional, citing its inconsistency with Section 9(1) of the Constitution, which guarantees equality. Her decision also carefully balanced the need for retrospective justice with practical legal limitations, extending the high court’s suspension of invalidity by 18 months to ensure legislative correction.

In the political realm, Judge Goliath presided over Tlouamma v Speaker of Parliament (2015), where opposition parties challenged the delay in scheduling a motion of no confidence against President Zuma. In dismissing the case, Goliath respected the doctrine of separation of powers, stating that the court could not prescribe how and when the National Assembly should schedule its business. Although her deference to Parliament was later criticized by the Constitutional Court in a separate case, United Democratic Movement v Speaker of the National Assembly, her judgment demonstrated careful consideration of judicial overreach in political matters.

A more recent notable case under Judge Goliath’s judicial record is Scalabrini Centre of Cape Town and Another v Minister of Home Affairs and Others (2023), a pivotal judgment where Goliath contributed to the Constitutional Court’s deliberation on immigration law and refugee rights. The case involved the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa and the government’s obligations to respect those rights under both domestic and international law. In this decision, Goliath underscored the importance of human dignity, a core value in South Africa’s Constitution, shaping the court’s decision to protect vulnerable migrant communities.

In the criminal justice sphere, Judge Patricia Lynette Goliath has presided over some of the country’s most high-profile cases, including the conviction of artist Zwelethu Mthethwa for the murder of sex worker Nokuphila Kumalo and the Anene Booysen rape and murder case, sentencing the perpetrator to two life terms.

April 2019 Interview:

April 2019 Interview Synopsis:

With interest growing around the appointment of judges to South Africa’s highest court, attendance in the public gallery grew for the round of Constitutional Court interviews. Many first-time visitors to the Judicial Service Commission’s (JSC) proceedings would have been forgiven for thinking that they had landed in a session at a charismatic Church — such was the fervour of Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng’s many tangents during Western Cape deputy judge president Patricia Goliath’s interview.

Mogoeng spoke for large swathes of Goliath’s interview so as to comment on varying matters including his fear that there is a “campaign” and “concerted effort” to “attack” and “discredit me”. He said therefore he only reads academic articles “sparingly” and that academic criticism of commercial law judgments coming out of the Constitutional Court was “about protecting that system of law” which was “untouchable” because it also protected the associated privilege.

Sometimes, after a diatribe from the chief justice, Goliath merely sat nonplussed or nodded agreement, with nothing to answer.

When Goliath was asked questions that dealt with her suitability to be appointed to South Africa’s most important court she performed adequately — her responses in no way suggested some divine inspiration.

She was asked by Sifiso Msomi, one of four presidential designations to the JSC, to comment on the “controversies concerning Constitutional Court judgments” including whether it was right for the apex court to deadlock —and make jurisprudential mistakes — in Jacobs and Others v S which was handed down on Valentines Day in 2019. She did not deal with fracture from the court’s previous jurisprudence which the judgment represented.

Goliath said deadlocks were common in other courts, like the Supreme Court in the United States and that while it was “regrettable”, it was a new phenomenon and the court “will learn a lot of lessons” from the experience.

Msomi also asked Goliath for her understanding of the principle of the separation of powers which was “not a dictionary meaning” and to give examples from her judgments which dealt with this doctrine. Goliath, channelling the dictionary, said the principle “recognised the functional independence of the different arms of government”. It also recognised the possibility of intrusions into, and tensions between, the different arms of government. She gave the Outa judgment (which she was not involved in hearing or writing) handed down by the Constitutional Court which dealt with e-tolling, as an example of the judiciary being mindful of not trespassing into the ambit of the executive.

Later, pressed by ANC member of the national council of provinces Jomo Nyambi, on one of her judgments which dealt with the separation of powers, Goliath cited the Tlouamma v Speaker of Parliament judgment which she handed down in the Western Cape High Court. It dealt with the a vote-of-no-confidence against former president Jacob Zuma (see profile).

Commissioner Dali Mpofu noted that the Constitutional Court had been critical of that judgement in the 2017 matter, United Democratic Movement v Speaker, National Assembly and Others.

Goliath said the Constitutional Court had “clarified” the aspect of the secret ballot and that while she had been unable to find it in the parliamentary rules, the apex court had ruled it was covered, as an option, in Rule 104.

SCA justice Azhar Cachalia asked Goliath if she was aware of the academic criticisms of the Constitutional Court’s judgments in private law matters. Goliath said she was not aware of these criticisms.

“Surely you should at least be inquisitive in how the judgments of the Constitutional Court are perceived and if there are criticisms have substance or don’t have substance?” asked Cachalia.

Goliath responded that she was not “completely oblivious” but was not aware of any criticisms that the court needed more judges with experience in areas like delict and commercial law.

Aside from being asked further questions about her thoughts to customary law and why it was not being developed to its full potential (“its always a challenge”), Goliath otherwise fielded questions which had very little to do with her suitability for appointment.

Goliath refused to take any blame for the backlog in handing down judgments at the Western Cape bench, reiterating that she had spent all of 2018 acting at the Constitutional Court and had been on long leave in 2019. She said the division otherwise ran like a “well-oiled machine”.

April 2016 Interview:

April 2016 Interview Synopsis: 

Goliath was nominated for appointed as deputy judge president of the Western Cape division after a rather tame interview compared to some of her other colleagues.

Responding to a series of questions posed by Supreme Court of Appeal president Lex Mpati that related to the administrative elements of the position, Goliath said:

She would first seek out from offending judges the reasons for overlong reserved judgments by judges, before remedying by restructuring work programmes and providing whatever other support necessary. If the problem persisted, she would eventually report the judges to the office of he chief justice.

Described herself as a “team player who gets in well with people” and capable of ensuring collegiality and unity on the Western Cape Bench.

Said she “cannot recall one instance in when female counsel appeared” before her on a commercial matter, and mourned that this demonstrated there was, “regretfully”, no transformation at the Cape Bar. This, she said, was one of the indicators that the Bar should provide support, assistance and mentoring to “address the paucity of black female advocates specifically”.

Would allocate cases to judges in the division according to various criteria, including matching complex cases with senior judges, considering the nature of a case, and if it were in the oubkic interest, “ensure you should have a diverse Bench”, and ensuring that judges did get exposure to a range of different types of legal matters so that each could gain experience and grow as a judge.