[Media Statement] Judges Matter welcomes historic appointment of two more women to the Constitutional Court

Judges Matter welcomes President Cyril Ramaphosa’s appointment of Justice Nambitha Christabel Dambuza-Mayosi and Justice Katharine Mary Savage as the new justices of the Constitutional Court. Both justices bring decades of experience in the law and, most importantly, appellate judicial experience, which will greatly benefit the highest court in the land.

[READ THE PRESIDENCY’S OFFICIAL STATEMENT]

With the appointment of Justices Dambuza and Savage, the Constitutional Court of South Africa becomes one of the very few woman-majority apex courts in the world. This is significant, as South Africa marks 70 years of the Women’s March to the Union Buildings on 9 August. It is also symbolically significant, considering that in 1994, only two out of the over 100 judges in South Africa were women.

Justice Dambuza-Mayosi

Justice Dambuza brings to the Constitutional Court 21 years of judicial experience. She is currently a senior justice of the Supreme Court of Appeal, where she has served since 2015. Before joining the SCA, she was a judge of the Eastern Cape High Court (2005–2015) and of the Competition Appeal Court (2010–2015). She practised as an attorney from 1992 to 2003 and was a lecturer at the University of Fort Hare (2002–2003). She holds BProc and LLB degrees from UKZN, and an LLM from Tulane University in New Orleans, United States, which she earned as a Fulbright Scholar. Justice Dambuza is also a visiting professor of law at Rhodes University and is chairperson of the governing council of Nelson Mandela University.

Justice Savage

Justice Kate Savage brings to the Constitutional Court 11 years of judicial experience and is recognised as one of South Africa’s leading labour law experts. She has been a judge of the Western Cape High Court since 2015, a judge of the Labour Appeal Court since 2024, and in 2022 was elected by the United Nations General Assembly as a judge on the United Nations Appeal Tribunal, a global judicial institution that deals with labour disputes in the UN system. Justice Savage was involved in the drafting of the democratic Constitution as a legal researcher in the ANC’s Constitutional Commission in Parliament from 1995 to 1996. She holds BA and LLB degrees from UCT, and an LLM (summa cum laude) from the University of Notre Dame in the United States, which she earned as a Fulbright Scholar. Since 2019, Justice Savage has served as a trustee of the Constitutional Court Trust, an independent trust that maintains the Constitutional Court’s extensive art collection, provides guided tours of the court, and awards international scholarships and fellowships to former clerks of the court.

While Judges Matter welcomes the President’s appointment of the two justices, we remain concerned about the long duration it has taken for the President to make these appointments, which was 184 days (from the date of the interviews to the date of the appointment). This has been the longest delay in the history of democratic South Africa, and we call on the President to provide an explanation of the causes of the delay and what steps are being taken to avoid further delays in future. With at least four more vacancies that will arise between now and the next election in 2029, we call on the President to address this issue urgently.

It is deeply concerning that the Constitutional Court has now taken 500 days since the hearing of the EFF v Speaker of the National Assembly (the so-called ‘Phala Phala’ case). While we emphasise that the Court should always prioritise legal and constitutional accuracy over speed, we are concerned that this case represents a broader institutional problem at the Court. Research shows that the workload of the Court has nearly tripled from 120 new cases in 2010 to more than 375 in 2024. At the same time, the resources allocated to the Court have either not kept pace or have declined. Partly as a result of this, the performance of the court has declined from an average of 102 days from hearing to judgment in 2010 to an average of 214 days in 2024. Delays in appointing judges, coupled with the resource mismatch, mean that this situation will continue into the future. We therefore call for urgent interventions to arrest this decline.

Mbekezeli Benjamin, researcher at Judges Matter, comments:

“The historic appointment of two more women to our apex court is welcome news as we celebrate 70 years of the Women’s March. Both Justice Dambuza and Justice Savage will add valuable experience to the Constitutional Court, and we hope that it will address our deep concerns about the declining performance of our apex court. While we acknowledge the efforts the government, led by Chief Justice Mandisa Maya, are taking to ensure the institutional independence of our courts, we call for urgent interventions to allocate more resources to ensure the Constitutional Court delivers justice speedily and regains its global reputation for judicial excellence.”

For comment:
Mbekezeli Benjamin 072 325 8661
Alison Tilley

ENDS